Brazilian clubs lead January spending

The 2024 January Transfer Window has passed for Europe's top five leagues, and so has the key month for winter business. 

But which clubs improved the most? Who were the best signings? And which players were the biggest bargains or the best-value sales? We dig into the data to find out.

We firstly measured the biggest impact of January business by TransferRoom's Player Ratings metric.

The Player Rating is a score from 0-100 which factors in:

• The quality of their team and the competition they play in
• Their percentage of the available minutes they play
• Their individual performance statistics, weighted by the stats most relevant to their position

From this we can see the biggest increase in Average Player Rating for first-team starters (the 10 highest-rated outfield players and the highest-rated goalkeeper), from before to after the January Transfer Window.

Brazilian clubs dominate, with the top seven all from Brazil's Serie A and Serie B. That's led by promoted top-flight duo Criciúma Esporte Clube and Esporte Clube Vitória.

That comes despite Brazil's Serie A making the biggest income in the Transfer Window worldwide, with €195m compared to their €127m spend. Vitor Roque's €40m move from Club Athletico Paranaense to FC Barcelona was the biggest sale.

It's evidence that the quality of the league is increasing overall, and Brazilian sides are recruiting higher-value players to play alongside the wealth of young talents pushing for a big move.

Turkey's MKE Ankaragücü, Poland's Ruch Chorzow and Croatia's HNK Hajduk Split are the most improved European sides.

As a result, Brazil's top two leagues are the most improved. Serie A's Average Player Rating's up from 69.5 to 70.7 in one month alone, while Serie B's risen by 0.6. Colombia's elite Primera A, the Greek Super League and the English Championship complete the top five.

The best signings of the Winter

We have determined the 'best signings' by any clubs in the Winter Transfer Window by comparing their Player Rating with the average of the team they're joining. 

These are the players with the biggest increase on their new side's Average Player Rating.

Latin America dominates in this category as well, with Higor Meritão and Yerson Candelo's moves the standouts for Criciúma.

One of Brazil's biggest clubs, CR Flamengo, made the headlines with the signing of Nicolás de la Cruz from Argentinian giants CA River Plate.

Outside of the Americas, two 83-rated players were the biggest game-changers for their new sides.

Riccardo Saponara comes into a MKE Ankaragücü team with an average starter rating of 71.7, while Al-Shabab FC have secured the coup of Ivan Rakitic from Sevilla FC.

Ivan Perisic, who has returned to boyhood club Hajduk Split for a salary of just €1 until the end of the season, makes a big impact, with a Player Rating 7.5 above the average of the Croatian side.

Biggest bargains and best player sales

Which transfers were the biggest bargains in January? We have the data to show exactly that, through our Expected Transfer Value metric (xTV).

xTV is our real-time measure of a player's market worth, factoring in their performance stats, the quality of club and league they play in, their contract length and individual transfer history, as well as deals for similar players as a benchmark.

According to the data, new OGC Nice forward Mohamed-Ali Cho was the bargain buy of the Window. His xTV at the time of signing was €20m, double the €10m the Ligue 1 club paid Real Sociedad.

Barcelona's teenage signing Roque is second, bought €9m under his xTV, while Olympique Lyonnais' Gift Orban, River Plate's Esequiel Barco and AS Roma's Tommaso Baldanzi complete the top five.

Selling clubs are always striving to get the best value for their players, and these are the top 10 deals where the player was sold by the biggest margin above their Expected Transfer Value.

The best player sale of January 2024, according to the xTV metric, was made by Italy's Hellas Verona. They sold €6.4m-rated Cyril Ngonge for €18m to SSC Napoli.

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