Chelsea have two teenage South American forwards lined up, Tottenham will welcome a new giant centre-half soon and Dortmund have a summer 2026 deal sorted.
The 2025 January transfer window is fun and all, but teams are using the opportunity to pre-arrange transfers years in advance now to steal a march on their rivals.
Chelsea are chief among them but plenty of other sides are indulging in the practice. These are the upcoming transfers sorted for future windows involving clubs in the top six European leagues.
Summer 2025
Estevao Willian (Palmeiras to Chelsea, £29m rising to £51m)
There are more obviously silly numbers involved – 19 goals ad 12 assists in 50 games this past season is daft – but a 17-year-old signing what is expected to be at the very least a seven-year contract to join a club littered with equally young and similarly gifted forwards should not be overlooked. Mauricio Pochettino played an important role in Estevao’s capture and it will be interesting to see whether Enzo Maresca can last long enough to at least oversee his first steps at Stamford Bridge.
Nicolas Gonzalez (Fiorentina to Juventus, £27.7m)
Once the subject of interest from Brighton and Spurs as well as a club-record Brentford bid, Gonzalez’s big move was a little different when it finally arrived. A season-long loan at Juventus contains what many have called an obligation to buy but is actually an option the club themselves have described as ‘subject to the achievement of certain sporting objective during the season 2024/2025’. Twelve games, seven starts and three goals for a team in Champions League qualification contention should really be enough.
Gabriel Carvalho (Internacional to Al-Qadsiah, £18.5m)
There is absolutely nothing more Modern Football than a Saudi club pre-signing a South American forward and Premier League target in a move which will go through when he turns 18 in the summer.
Kendry Paez (Independiente del Valle to Chelsea, £17.2m)
There is substantially less Chelsea hype surrounding Paez but his future move further underlines their commitment to pursuing the best young players in world football, with South America the current hotbed.
Manu Kone (Gladbach to Roma, £15.1m)
Remember when he was supposed to be one of the answers to Liverpool’s midfield problems? Kone has instead ended up in another of those temporary loans with an obligation to buy dependent upon certain clauses, which are almost certain to be activated as he is a regular Roma starter.
Michele Di Gregorio (Monza to Juventus, £12m)
A gold star to the accountancy team at Juventus, who might well have forgotten by now that they set a ticking timebomb to go off next summer with a series of delicate loans and obligations and such.
Luka Vuskovic (Hajduk Split to Tottenham, £12m)
Seven months after making his senior debut as the youngest player to feature in the Croatian top flight, Vuskovic was snapped up by a Tottenham side declaring dibs almost two years in advance. The 6ft 4ins 17-year-old is spending his final season before moving to north London permanently on loan in a Belgian relegation battle as Westerlo’s joint top scorer.
Ismail Jakobs (Monaco to Galatasaray, £6.7m)
Galatasaray themselves have called it a ‘mandatory purchase option’ and the left-back’s minor role in another unstoppable title charges does nothing to change that.
Summer 2026
Justin Lerma (Independiente del Valle to Borussia Dortmund, £8.4m)
The Independiente factory continues to churn out potential gems for their European counterparts to poach and polish and few teams are bettered equipped in that regard than Dortmund, who bagsied midfielder Lerma ready for after his 18th birthday when his career consisted of just 65 first-team minutes.
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