When it is eventually concluded, James Trafford's move from Manchester City to Leeds United for more than £40million will make him the most expensive player in his new club's history. Leeds will then become the only team in the Premier League whose transfer record is held by a goalkeeper — a statistic that captures one of football's strangest market anomalies.

Success at the highest level of the game appears to depend on high-quality goalkeeping. Arsenal are the Premier League champions, and few would argue that David Raya is not among the best in the world. Spain were recently crowned World Cup winners, and Unai Simon deserves similar billing. Paris Saint-Germain won last season's Champions League with Matvey Safonov, a good rather than spectacular goalkeeper — but the point stands.

Prizes built on safe hands — but budgets tell another story

That importance is not reflected in what clubs have traditionally been willing to spend. The most expensive goalkeeper in history remains Kepa Arrizabalaga, who cost €80million (£72m; $93m) when Chelsea paid his release clause to prise him from Athletic Club in 2018. The £67m that took Alisson from Roma to Liverpool in the same summer sits second on the list, while back in 2001 Juventus signed Gianluigi Buffon from Parma for a then-astonishing £32.6m.

Since inflation is being ignored, Trafford is about to become only the fourth goalkeeper in history to cost more than £40m, with Andre Onana — who joined Manchester United for £44m in 2023 — the other. His transfer will also knock Odysseas Vlachodimos, who joined Newcastle United from Nottingham Forest for £20m in 2024, outside the top 20.

The comparison with other positions is startling. Spending on forwards and midfielders breached the £100m mark long ago, and while Harry Maguire remains the most expensive defender in history after costing Manchester United £80m in 2019, a further 19 centre-backs and full-backs have cost €58m or more before this summer. In transfer market terms, goalkeepers lag well behind.

An old prejudice, from Clough's boardroom to today

Historically, one obvious explanation stands above the rest: attacking players are more fun and fashionable, and it is easier to measure their worth. Goalscorers have a clear value, and attacking players are more regularly associated with the exciting, game-changing moments that have always justified their price tags.

That mattered when transfer spending depended on convincing club directors. In Jonathan Wilson's biography of Brian Clough, the then-Nottingham Forest head coach is recalled facing "murmurings from the board" after spending £270,000 on goalkeeper Peter Shilton in 1977 — with one member questioning why so much money was being spent on a player who "would not be involved for 85 minutes of a game". This came just months after forward Kevin Keegan had been sold by Liverpool to Hamburg for £500,000. Clough was not always the most reliable witness, but the anecdote describes prevailing attitudes through the years, when boardrooms were full of local businessmen and footballing knowledge was thin on the ground.

The data problem: 'It's easy to analyse it wrongly'

Today, clubs possess scouting tools and data analytics that make valuing a player simpler than ever — but the same is not necessarily true for goalkeepers. Ian Graham, Liverpool's director of research between 2012 and 2023 and author of How to Win the Premier League, explains the difficulty.

"The most important thing goalkeepers do — stopping shots — is captured very well by the data, but (as with all football data) it's easy to analyse it wrongly. The other aspects of play are also much more difficult. For instance, traditional data providers are not good at capturing whether a goalkeeper tried to claim a cross or corner. Instead, they often record only when there's an error or a success. You need tracking data to capture goalkeeper ability properly. Calculating whether they could or should have come out for a cross or corner requires significant modelling beyond what most clubs can do in-house."

That knowledge gap creates a vicious cycle: incomplete information leading to unsuccessful deals, in turn creating reticence around further spending. "If you look at the big fees paid for goalkeepers over the past few seasons, many of them didn't work out," Graham continues. "Partly, that's down to talent identification, with few clubs having specialist scouting and analysis for the position. Usually, the goalkeeping coach handles that work on top of their main job."

Liverpool were the exception, and reaped the rewards. "Liverpool were very early in hiring a goalkeeping consultant, Hans Leitert," Graham says. "We ended up using Hans to collect unique goalkeeping data." That data and Leitert's judgement underpinned one of the position's great transfer successes — the signing of Alisson, with whom the club won two Premier League titles and the Champions League.

Most recruiting departments lack such depth. A scout for a Champions League club, speaking anonymously, admits: "What's really strange is that you meet a lot of scouts who say: 'I don't really know much about goalkeepers'. I do it myself. And with other positions that would never be accepted. Imagine if you said: 'Oh, I don't really know much about wingers?'. I sometimes joke that whenever you make a list of goalkeepers, you always have to pass it through the goalkeeping coach. You would never do that with any other position."

A calmer market built on stability

The goalkeeping market is unique in other ways, too. Devin Ozek, formerly executive assistant to Bayer Leverkusen's CEO and most recently Fenerbahce's sporting director, believes goalkeepers simply move under different conditions.

"The goalkeeper is now involved in so many aspects of play. They are crucial to the build-up, they help teams defeat a high press, and they can launch counterattacks, all as well as being the last line of defence. Views are changing slowly, as is the willingness to invest in goalkeepers. But why is it like this? Well, it's a bit easier to plan longer term. There's not as much fluctuation in the position — you don't need to make a change every second season. If you sign a goalkeeper, sometimes they stay for five, six, seven or eight years."

"If I have a top goalkeeper at my club and I know that in one or two seasons he's going to leave, then I have time to prepare," Ozek adds. "With outfield players, it's much more dynamic. With form, or injuries, and unexpected factors, the situation is more volatile."

Graham agrees: "Many top teams need one or two forwards or midfielders every year, but if they already have a good goalkeeper, they only need a new No 1 every five years." Clubs also encourage stability around their goalkeepers. While competition and depth are positives in most outfield positions, goalkeepers benefit from trust and faith, and most teams have a designated first choice — partly to avoid the unrest that comes with an expensively signed reserve.

Supply, demand and a shortage of candidates

A scout for a Premier League team, also speaking anonymously, makes a further point about the scarcity of genuine options: "How many top goalkeepers are there that you would spend a large fee on? There are fewer than 10 right now, and all of them are starting for top clubs. Gianluigi Donnarumma was available last summer, but that was unusual."

"There's a supply and demand problem. The best clubs sign goalkeepers and stick with them, so they don't buy very often. There are not many goalkeepers that are worth that kind of investment, so that's another factor. And those that are worth it aren't moving clubs anyway."

Talent production is a separate issue entirely. Far more youngsters grow up wanting to score goals than save them, and the position demands a particular size and build that filters the pool even further. However the transfer market evolves, goalkeepers remain a case apart —essential, as everybody agrees. What they are actually worth, and what clubs should be spending on them, is a question nobody can quite answer.