'Very difficult' - Sir Alex Ferguson's six-year Manchester United mistake that Erik ten Hag is about to avoid
manchestereveningnews.co.ukThe goalkeepers. The outcasts. The oddballs. The stranded. It's a position that is so integral to football yet somehow went, and still does to some degree, go underappreciated.
The transfer fees usually deemed acceptable to spend on them have beared this out. Gianluigi Buffon's £47.6million move from Parma to Juventus in 2001 was an astonishingly high fee for the time but it wasn't rare to see outfielders go for that much by that point and it stood as the record for the most expensive goalkeeper until it was broken twice in the same summer in 2018.
Buffon remains the third most expensive goalkeeper of all time but is in 89th place when you add outfielders to the mix. Kepa Arrizabalaga tops the goalkeeper list as Chelsea spent a ludicrous £71.5m to sign him but he's still only 26th for all transfers.
For such a crucial role, it is remarkably underrepresented in the biggest transfer of all time as teams deem players like Wesley Fofana, Raphina and Luka Jovic more important.
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