Jamie Carragher believes Manchester United are responsible for the greatest signing in Premier League history after the move transformed them from a good team into a great one.
One of the biggest talking points from the latest episode of The Overlap – brought to you by Sky Bet – was a discussion around the best Premier League transfers.
Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and David Ornstein discussed the subject in detail, with the latter picking former Leicester City and Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante as the best.
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“I think it’s N’Golo Kante," Ornstein said. "He came from nowhere at very little cost to Leicester City, helped them win a title at 5000/1 odds and then went to win multiple major trophies with Chelsea and the French national team.
"He’s an incredible footballer to this day and he’s a wonderful person as well, so that’s going to get my vote.”
Carragher agreed that Kante is up there with one of the best signings but argued that Eric Cantona comes out on top when it comes to the overall impact he made on English football.
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Arriving mid-way through the 1992/93 campaign from Leeds United for a mere £1.2 million, the enigmatic Frenchman inspired Sir Alex Ferguson's side to their first Premier League title.
Cantona went on to win four league trophies at Old Trafford, sparking a run of domestic dominance in the late 90's and 00's.
“I would’ve always said Cantona, but when you’ve just said Kante then, you do think about it don’t you? Winning the title with two teams," Carragher said.
“Obviously Cantona did that too with Leeds then he moved to United. I’d probably still go for Cantona above Kante actually, thinking about what Man United became. It became a monster in terms of revenue and money.”
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Sir Alex Ferguson certainly agrees with Carragher, saying: "When Eric Cantona came - he was a messiah. He transformed us. The confidence factor. There's no question about that."
Back in 2021, Carragher said Kante's former Leicester City teammate Jamie Vardy 'might' be English football's greatest signing following his £1 million move from Fleetwood Town to the Foxes in 2012.
Vardy, of course, went on to help Leicester lift the most unlikely of Premier League titles in 2016.
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“I am always reluctant to definitively declare anyone or anything is ‘the best ever'. It can only be a matter of opinion," he said in his column with the Telegraph.
"But if you were compiling a list of the greatest, most influential signings and judging it on value for money, who eclipses Vardy?
”We can talk about many transfers which changed the course of Premier League history, such as Eric Cantona joining Manchester United, Dennis Bergkamp to Arsenal, Yaya Toure or David Silva moving to Manchester City, or Virgil van Dijk joining Liverpool.
”They were established, international players and household names heading to clubs already building towards titles – the finishing touch to emerging teams.”
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Carragher added: ”Whenever the story of English football is told to future generations, they will talk about Leicester before and after Vardy’s arrival,”
Topics: Jamie Carragher, Premier League, Manchester United, Eric Cantona
Jack Kenmare