Elliot Anderson is now the most expensive British footballer ever
A £116m move to Manchester City turns a player Newcastle sold two years ago into the costliest British footballer in history.
Jul 9, 2026
Manchester City have made Elliot Anderson the most expensive British footballer of all time, paying Nottingham Forest a guaranteed £116m for the 23-year-old England midfielder. The fee edges past the £115m Real Madrid committed to Jude Bellingham in 2023, and unlike a lot of headline numbers this one comes with no add-ons or performance clauses inflating it. It is £116m, flat, for a player Newcastle were willing to cash in on two years ago.
From a £35m sale to a £116m record
The most striking part of this deal is how recently Anderson was viewed as expendable. He came through Newcastle’s academy but was sold to Forest in 2024 for around £35m, a move driven as much by the balance sheet and spending rules as by football logic. Newcastle needed the accounting, and a homegrown midfielder was the price. Two years later Forest have turned that £35m into £116m, more than tripling their money on a player Newcastle let walk out of the building.
That kind of resale is the sort of business every selling club dreams about and almost none pull off. For Forest it banks a colossal profit and hands them a summer war chest. For Newcastle it is a decision that will be picked over for years, however sound the reasoning looked at the time.
Why City decided he was worth it
City do not spend like this on potential alone. Anderson has grown into an all-action central midfielder who covers ground, breaks up play and carries the ball forward, the kind of engine a possession-heavy side needs to avoid growing static in the middle. His form for Forest earned him an England call-up, and he has spent this summer at the World Cup, starting all three of England’s group games rather than watching from the bench.
At 23 he also fits the profile City tend to pay premiums for: young enough to improve, established enough to start now. He has signed a five-year contract with the option of a further year, and the structure of the deal suggests City see him as a long-term fixture rather than a stopgap. When you are paying a national record, that is the only way the maths works.
What the number says about the market
A £116m fee for a midfielder who was uncapped not long ago tells you where the transfer market has travelled. British clubs, and City in particular, are increasingly willing to pay a premium for homegrown talent, partly because domestic players ease squad-registration and financial-rules headaches that overseas signings do not. Anderson ticked several boxes at once, and the bidding reflected it.
The move formally completes as Anderson returns from international duty, with England still alive at the World Cup. Whenever he does pull on a City shirt for the first time, he will do so carrying a price tag no British player has ever worn before. That is a strange kind of pressure for someone who, not long ago, was surplus to requirements on Tyneside.