'Secret deals, home visits & handshakes' - how transfer deals are done in 2026

Premier League clubs smashed the transfer spending record with £3.46bn - with a crazy deadline day full of deals, drama and collapses.

The previous record spend was £3.14billion last summer but with so many top clubs still doing business right up until the 11pm close, that was always likely to be broken.

Liverpool signed Bradley Barcola for an initial £106m from Paris Saint-Germain on Monday, while Manchester City equalled the British transfer record to land Enzo Fernandez for £125m from Chelsea on deadline day. But quite apart from the levels of spending, it is the different approach to transfer dealings which is really catching the eye.

Players agreeing contract terms ahead of transfers, managers openly speaking to players from other clubs and agents touting players around.

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'Players going to the house of their potential new manager is pretty common'

Now, you would have to be pretty naïve to think this has not gone on for years. Of course it has. Sometimes with the selling club’s knowledge. And sometimes without.

Agents get deals lined up and then players can agree or not. Players going round to the house of a manager is pretty common.

After one of the biggest deals of this window, one player confided that his new manager had been calling him all summer. This is only an issue if the selling club wants to make it an issue.

But the difference this summer is the sheer level of deals, offers and agreements. “It is very unusual with so many transfers on the table,” said one agent. “There’s so many more deals to be done.”

One leading agent told me the next few days will be intensely busy and there will be a huge number of deals completed before the window shuts next Tuesday night.

Fernandez could be the biggest. Chelsea could be the busiest.

What is interesting this summer is that so many deals are being done between the buying club, the players and his agents - and only then do they involve the club he belongs to.

Clearly, this has always happened - particularly in the Premier League era - but now it goes on all the time.

'New generation of sporting directors have changed approach'

You only have to remember Newcastle saying they had not received any contact from Arsenal over Bruno Guimaraes - and then it getting done very quickly.

The same noises are there with Chelsea and Fernandez. All the parties know the score but Chelsea want a price and a replacement. Once all the building blocks are in a row, it can get done very quickly.

There has also been a shift down the years in how players view contracts. The average fan hopes their star player is signed for five years when they put pen to paper on a new deal. But if a club comes in with a better offer, the player wants to talk and the chance to take up that transfer.

For example, one player who signed a long-term deal last year wants to move and an agent has been hired to get another club. But he only wants to stay in the north of England.

While his manager insists publicly the midfielder is part of his plans, one agent has been given a mandate to find a club overseas.

This is very common but another theory as to why the merry-go-round seems busier is that, with so much money being spent, players and agents want to make hay while the sun shines.

It is the sheer number of secret deals, handshakes and contracts which is the big shift. Maybe it is a new generation of sporting directors or a change in approach.

But one thing is for sure: we are on course for a record and the spending is unlikely to stop any time soon.

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