Summer Transfer Window 2026: the moves that change your picks

Every summer the same thing happens: you build the perfect prediction pool with your friends, then the transfer window rips up half your assumptions before a ball is kicked. A striker moves, a manager arrives, and suddenly the team you had pencilled in as an easy home win looks like a coin flip.

The 2026 window has been one of the loudest in years. Here are the confirmed deals — as reported by FootballTransfers and ESPN’s done-deals trackers (15 July 2026) — and, more importantly, what each one means when you sit down to fill in your picks next season. These are moves, not rumors: every deal in the main list below is signed and official.

28 July update: one winger going west, one full-back sold in halves

Two official deals, and neither one leads a transfer show. Both are the kind that quietly change a season.

Jack Harrison to New England Revolution, from Leeds United. The 29-year-old winger leaves Elland Road after eight years and signs as a Designated Player through the 2029-30 MLS season. The fee was not disclosed, and the move is pending a P-1 visa and an international transfer certificate. He made 219 appearances for Leeds, playing a major role in the promotion season and the survival campaign that followed, with two years on loan at Everton in between (Leeds United, New England Revolution, MLSSoccer).

One note on sourcing, because you will see this filed both ways: at least one transfer aggregator listed it as a loan. Leeds, the Revolution and MLS all published it as permanent, so that is what we are running here.

The detail nobody is leading with: Harrison was the first overall pick in the 2016 MLS SuperDraft. He is going back to the league that drafted him, with 375-plus professional appearances and eleven years in England and Italy in between.

Julio Díaz to Sevilla, from Atletico Madrid. Official on Tuesday 28 July, hours after the 21-year-old left-back travelled to Seville to sign — and the structure is the whole story. Sevilla bought 50% of his rights for €1m plus up to €500,000 in add-ons, on a contract to 30 June 2031, and Atletico kept a buyback reported at €2m, executable in the next three windows (that clause is attributed to journalist Rubén Uría rather than published by either club). It is Sevilla’s fifth signing of the summer (El Desmarque). Díaz came through Atletico’s academy after an earlier spell at Rayo Vallecano, made his first-team debut on 28 February 2026 against Real Oviedo — a full ninety minutes — and finished the season with four LaLiga appearances.

What it means for your picks: these two deals teach the same lesson from opposite ends. MLS has spent this window buying what the Premier League has finished with — Griezmann to Orlando, now Harrison to New England — and a Designated Player arriving in the middle of a season is the most over-picked variable there is. The name lands in July; the chemistry lands somewhere around September. If your pool covers MLS through the Leagues Cup stretch, give New England’s next month more variance than the signing suggests, not less.

Díaz is the opposite trap. Read the structure, not the headline. A club that buys half a player and leaves a €2m exit door open for three windows is planning for one season, not five — that is a club keeping its options open, and it usually means a rotation role rather than a locked-in starting spot. Every August, pools misprice the young full-back who “signed for a big club” and then plays nine league games. The transfer is real; the minutes are the thing you are actually predicting.

26 July update: Atletico hand a shirt with history to a PSG squad player

Kang-in Lee to Atletico Madrid, from PSG. The 25-year-old South Korea international has signed a five-year contract to 30 June 2031. The fee has been widely reported at around €40m, but neither club published a figure, and at least one outlet has it closer to €35m — so treat the number as approximate until somebody official prints it. He leaves Paris after three seasons in which he never nailed down a starting role, and still collected 12 trophies, including the last two Champions Leagues (Al Jazeera, Get French Football News, OneFootball).

The detail that matters most is the one that isn’t about money: Spanish and Mexican outlets report he takes the No 7 shirt left behind by Antoine Griezmann (Record, Mediotiempo). Griezmann spent a decade defining what Atletico’s attack looked like, and he is now in Major League Soccer with Orlando — where, as we covered in MLS is back, he scored on his debut. One transfer window, two leagues, one shirt.

Also official on 25 July: Daizen Maeda, Celtic to Ipswich Town for a reported €11.7m; Conor Townsend, Ipswich to West Brom on a free; Carlos Fernandez, Real Sociedad to Real Oviedo; and Luca Erlein, Hoffenheim to Leverkusen for €2m on a deal to 2030. On loan: Arnau Tenas (Villarreal to Mallorca), Jose Gragera (Espanyol to Burgos), Max Merrick (Chelsea to Hartlepool) and Owen Goodman (Crystal Palace to Dundee) (FootballTransfers).

What it means for your picks: a squad player at one club is not a squad player at the next one. At PSG, Lee was the guy who came on at 65 minutes with the game already decided; at Atletico he is being handed a starting role and a number that carries expectation. That gap — same player, different job — is the single most common thing prediction pools misprice in August, because everybody is still picking off last season’s minutes. Give Atletico’s early fixtures more variance than the table suggests, in both directions: a player finally given the keys can look like a different footballer, or he can take three months to look like himself. Nobody in your pool knows which yet, including you.

25 July update: the rumor we flagged on Wednesday is now signed

Three days ago this tracker put Crysencio Summerville in the “reported, not confirmed” box at the bottom of this page, with a note to treat it as noise until a club posted it. Both clubs have now posted it.

Crysencio Summerville to Al-Hilal, £60m. The 24-year-old Netherlands winger leaves West Ham for the Saudi Pro League on a four-year contract: £55m up front plus a further £5m in add-ons. He arrived at the London Stadium from Leeds in August 2024 and left with eight goals in 56 appearances. Sky Sports rates it the third-biggest sale in West Ham’s history, behind only Declan Rice to Arsenal and Mateus Fernandes to Tottenham. At Al-Hilal he joins a squad already holding Rubén Neves, Karim Benzema and Theo Hernández under Simone Inzaghi (Sky Sports, beIN Sports, Goal).

We’re leaving the old rumor line further down this page exactly where it was. That’s the point of a tracker: you can see what we called unconfirmed on Wednesday and what it turned into on Saturday. A deal is not a deal until the badge goes up — and when it does, it moves up here.

Hidemasa Morita to Hull City, free. The 31-year-old Japan midfielder signs a two-year deal with a club option for a third after being released by Sporting CP, where four seasons brought two Primeira Liga titles and the Taça de Portugal. He has 40 caps for Japan and is Hull’s fourth signing of the summer, after Matt Targett and Óscar Zambrano (Hull City, Yahoo Sports).

Also official on 24 July, per FootballTransfers’ done-deals tracker: Iker Bravo and Luca Kjerrumgaard from Udinese to Watford, Bilal Nadir to Hamburg on a free, Martin James to Köln on a free, Ricardo Mangas to Monza on loan, Zerbin and Hasa from Napoli to Frosinone, Yeray Cabanzón to Valladolid, and Juan Cruz to Oviedo on a free (FootballTransfers).

What it means for your picks: four weeks out from kickoff, West Ham have sold their most direct wide threat and haven’t replaced the goals. That’s the kind of exit that quietly turns “comfortable home win” fixtures into the ones that wreck a round — and it’s exactly the sort of thing everyone in your pool will still be picking off last season’s form table in August. Hull, meanwhile, got a 40-cap international with four trophy-winning seasons at Sporting for nothing. Free transfers at that level of experience are the most underrated line in any window: no fee means no pressure, and over a long season a settled midfield is worth more to a squad than a marquee name is.

24 July update: four more signed, and one of them is a league record

There are four weeks left before the Premier League kicks off on 21 August, and the clubs you’re about to pick every week are still rebuilding. Four more deals have gone official.

Christos Tzolis to Arsenal, £34m. The 24-year-old Greece winger joins from Club Brugge on a five-year deal — and the fee is a Belgian Pro League transfer record. He arrives as cover and competition for Leandro Trossard’s role, after 108 games for Brugge that produced 43 goals and 45 assists, including 23 and 17 last season alone (Arsenal, ESPN, Sky Sports).

Aladji Bamba to Newcastle, £35.5m. The 20-year-old Monaco midfielder signed this week on a five-year contract to 2031 — £30m up front plus £5.5m in add-ons — and takes the No 8 shirt. He is a France under-20 international and a current European Golden Boy nominee, with 25 first-team appearances including both legs of Monaco’s Champions League knockout play-off (Newcastle United, Sky Sports).

Alejandro Garnacho to Aston Villa, on loan. The 22-year-old Argentina winger leaves Chelsea on a season-long loan with an obligation to buy if appearance-based conditions are met, ahead of a four-year contract; the deal is being valued at around £40m. He moved because he wasn’t guaranteed minutes (FootballTransfers, Sofascore).

Xaver Schlager to Nottingham Forest, free. The 28-year-old Austria midfielder arrives from RB Leipzig on a two-year deal — the first signing of the Oliver Glasner era, reuniting him with the coach who managed him at Wolfsburg. He made 108 appearances across four seasons at Leipzig (Nottingham Forest, beIN Sports). Smaller move the same day: Muhammed Damar, Hoffenheim to Wolfsburg for €5.3m.

What it means for your picks: three of these four are squad-depth moves rather than headline stars, and that is exactly the kind of signing pools get wrong. A Forest side with a Glasner midfield anchor, or a Villa front line with Garnacho in it, doesn’t change how you pick their marquee fixtures — it changes the away trips to mid-table sides that used to be automatic draws. Bamba is the one worth watching hardest: handing a 20-year-old the No 8 shirt at Newcastle is a statement of faith in him, and young midfielders take weeks, not days, to settle. Give Newcastle’s opening fixtures more uncertainty than last season’s form table suggests.

23 July update: Adeyemi is a Barcelona player

The newest deal on the board is done. Barcelona have signed Karim Adeyemi from Borussia Dortmund. The 24-year-old Germany forward joins for €22m plus a further €7m in performance-related add-ons, on a contract running to 30 June 2031 (ESPN, France 24).

You’ll see this deal written up as a €29m transfer in some places. That’s the same deal — €22m fixed plus the €7m in add-ons — not a separate, higher fee. Dortmund also kept a sell-on percentage of any future transfer, though the exact figure being reported varies by outlet, so treat the number itself as unconfirmed.

Adeyemi leaves Dortmund after four seasons. Hansi Flick, who handed him his senior Germany debut, wanted him at Barcelona.

What it means for your pool: Barcelona now have another direct, genuinely fast runner in behind — a different problem for defences than the possession-heavy version of this side. When a team adds pace on the counter, away fixtures against mid-table opposition get less predictable, because the shape of the game changes once they’re ahead. Worth a second look at Barça’s away picks in the opening weeks rather than assuming the usual comfortable win.

The smaller deals that also went official on 23 July: Matt Targett to Hull City on a free, Filippo Rinaldi to Catania on loan from Parma until 30 June 2027, and Mikayil Faye to Nürnberg on loan from Rennes (FootballTransfers).

Late-July update: a British record, now official (22 July)

The window kept moving after this tracker first went up, and the biggest name has now crossed the line. Morgan Rogers is a Chelsea player. The club completed the signing of the England forward from Aston Villa for a reported £117m, a British-record fee that edges past the £116m Manchester City paid Nottingham Forest for Elliot Anderson earlier this summer and the £115m Chelsea themselves spent on Moisés Caicedo in 2023. Rogers, 23, has signed a contract to 2033.

Yesterday this deal sat in a “reported, not yet official” box in this same section — a reminder of why we never lock picks on transfer noise until the club posts it. Now the badge is up, so it moves into the confirmed column: Rogers becomes the most expensive British player ever.

The newest name to watch is still in the rumor stage: Crysencio Summerville is reported to be heading to Al Hilal, with the Saudi club said to have moved ahead of Manchester United and Roma for the winger. Reported, not confirmed — treat it as noise until it’s signed.

The smaller deals that also went official in the last few days were depth pieces: Kayne van Oevelen to Ipswich, Tariq Lamptey to QPR on a free, and Lassine Sinayoko to Paris FC. Serie A and the Bundesliga stayed quiet at the top end.

What it means for your pool: a £117m attacker leaving Aston Villa reshapes how you read every Villa fixture next season — and it drops another creator into a Chelsea side already full of them. Villa now have to replace 21 league goals of production; Chelsea have to fit yet another forward into the mix. Both are reasons to treat those two teams’ early-season fixtures as coin-flips rather than locks.

Tottenham’s £260m rebuild under De Zerbi

The headline spender of the window. With Roberto De Zerbi now in charge, Spurs have gone big: Sandro Tonali and Jan Paul van Hecke headline the paid signings, alongside Mateus Fernandes, with free transfers Andrew Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka adding experience across the spine.

What it means for your pool: a squad rebuilt this heavily is genuinely hard to read early. New signings need weeks to click, and De Zerbi’s style takes time to bed in. Don’t assume a top-four Spurs from matchweek one — the first month is where big rebuilds drop surprise results, and that’s exactly where an exact-score pick can win you the round.

Real Madrid and the Mourinho reunion

The plot twist nobody had on their card: José Mourinho is back at Real Madrid. And he wasted no time — Denzel Dumfries arrives for around €20m, while Ibrahima Konaté and Bernardo Silva both join on free transfers, with Marc Cucurella adding depth at full-back.

What it means for your pool: a new manager with a defined identity usually tightens a team up fast, but the transition can be bumpy. Madrid remain favourites in most fixtures, yet a Mourinho first season is rarely a smooth ride — expect a few dropped points that will quietly reward whoever picked the draw.

Chelsea and Man Utd keep building

Two more of the traditional heavyweights added quietly but meaningfully:

• Chelsea brought in Marco Palestra for around €55m, another young piece in their long-term project.
• Manchester United, under Michael Carrick, signed Youri Tielemans for roughly €41m plus goalkeeper Karl Darlow for cover.

What it means for your pool: Tielemans gives United a steadier midfield, which tends to make a side more consistent — and consistency is your friend when you’re picking results week after week. Chelsea’s project stays a work in progress, so treat their early fixtures with caution.

How to turn transfer news into better picks

Signings don’t tell you who wins — they tell you where the uncertainty is. Three quick rules for the new season:

1. Rebuilt squad = unpredictable early. New chemistry rarely shows up in the opening weeks.
2. New manager = patience. Give a fresh project a month before you trust it blindly.
3. A marquee attacking signing = more goals. That’s where exact-score picks start paying off.

Read every deal as data for your predictions, never as a guarantee. You read the form, you make the call.

Set up your pool before the season kicks off

The best time to start a prediction pool is right now, while everyone’s arguing about the transfers. On Quini you create a private pool, invite your friends with a link, and the leaderboard updates itself live as the goals go in — no spreadsheets, no keeping score by hand.

New to it? Here’s how it works and a look at the plans. And if you’re running a knockout bracket first, we wrote the full guide on how to run a knockout pool with friends.

Create your free pool on Quini — it takes two minutes, no card needed, and your friends can play straight from the browser.