Berbatov best buy of last seasonIt is one of the most common arguments between football fans up and down the country: who was the best foreign buy of the season? Now supporters can point to university research to back up their claims. Prof Tom Cannon from the University of Buckingham and his researchers calculated who was the top foreign transfer last summer, but their findings are likely to cause even more disagreement. Purchase price, transfer costs, number of starts, total playing time, success brought, key contributions, goals, key events, cards received, impact on merchandising, points won and transfer value were all taken into account to work out the value of each player.
Unsurprisingly, Dimitar Berbatov and Benni McCarthy topped the list, but the presence of the disappointing Michael Ballack ahead of West HamÂ’s inspirational forward Carlos Tevez will raise eyebrows.
It is also questionable how the "transfer costs" of Tevez and Javier Mascherano can be calculated given the lack of clarity over their moves.
The presence of Idan Tal, who started just four Premiership games, ahead of £30m Andriy Shevchenko, highlights how big a flop the Ukrainian was for Chelsea.
THE PROFESSOR’S ‘TOP 10 BUYS1 Dimitar Berbatov (Spurs, £10.9m)
2 Benni McCarthy (Blackburn, £2.5m)
3 Javier Mascherano (Liverpool)
4 Obafemi Martins (Newcastle, £9m)
5 Michael Ballack (Chelsea, free)
6 Idan Tal (Bolton, free)
7 Carlos Tevez (West Ham)
8 Andreas Isaksson (Man City, £2m)
9 Tomas Rosicky (Arsenal, £6.8m)
10 Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool, £9m)
thgt he also in one of the flops