It's way too early to judge any of the permanent January transfers.
The window barely ended over a month ago. Teams are spending tens of millions of dollars on transfer fees, and they're signing their players to long-term contracts. On top of all of that, it's really hard for anyone to switch teams and cities and maybe even countries midseason and immediately play your best. It's going to be a long time until we can be confident whether too many of these moves have failed or succeeded.
At the same time, these early months -- and these first 10 or so games -- still count. If a player doesn't play. or plays poorly, you don't get to add that time back onto the end of his contract. Barring an injury crisis or an unlikely shot at a title or a European place, every transfer should be a long-term move. But ideally, every transfer pays off in the short-term, too. And if it happens to be a loan move? Well, there's a short term, an even shorter term, and that's it.
So, have any January transfers hit the ground running? I've picked out the 15 biggest January transfers in Europe (as determined by the fee and the player's crowdsourced market value on the site Transfermarkt and ranked them based on the immediate impact each player has had for his new club.
All stats reference domestic play only.
1. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, winger, Paris Saint-Germain
Age: 23
Original team: Napoli
Fee: €70 million
Market value: €85m
Napoli letting their uh, you know, best player leave while they were in the middle of a title race was baffling. PSG's comparatively unlimited resources allowed them to pounce on an undervalued, surprisingly available player who also didn't suit their needs. They already had three dribble-heavy, on-ball wingers in Ousmane Dembélé, Bradley Barcola, and Désiré Doué.
Kvaratskhelia seemed redundant at PSG initially ... until Luis Enrique turned Dembélé into a center-forward. Dembélé has been the best player in the world since Kvaratskhelia arrived, and the Georgian has almost seamlessly become a starter for what's probably the best team in the world right now. At least, there's no one else out there who could've done what they did to Liverpool.
PSG totally dominated the presumptive Premier League champs in the first leg of their Champions League matchup -- and a could-be winner from Kvara was ruled out because a centimeter of heel-bone was offside. Of course, Liverpool still won the game, and PSG need to win at Anfield to stay alive. But even if they don't, the move for Kvaratskhelia already looks likely to be a success.
2. Randal Kolo Muani, forward, Juventus
Age: 26
Original team: Paris Saint-Germain
Fee: €3.6m loan
Market value: €30m
If you're going to pay millions of dollars in loan fees, you better make sure you actually play the player you're only temporarily acquiring. And while Juventus's season is hanging on by a thread only visible with the world's most powerful microscope, at least head coach Thiago Motta has put Kolo Muani on the field. He's taken Dusan Vlahovic's spot in the lineup, and he's produced double the number of combined goals and assists (five goals, one assist) as anyone else on this list. He's also played the most minutes (507): no one else has even reached 450.
3. Abdukodir Khusanov, defender, Manchester City
Age: 20
Original team: Lens
Fee: €40m
Market value: €12m
Although they're stuck in fifth in the table, Manchester City's problems have been moving around. The defense used to be the issue, but as you can see in this chart, which shows their average xG conceded of every five-game set of matches this season, it's steadily improved in 2025.
One of the biggest changes in 2025? Khusanov has played 414 minutes. His City career started as poorly as possible when he played a headed through-ball to create a goal for Chelsea's attackers on debut, but he's settled in since and his world-class pace has helped stabilize a plodding City defense.
4. Santiago Gimenez, forward, AC Milan
Age: 23
Original team: Feyenoord Rotterdam
Fee: €32m
Market value: €37m
He's played a lot and has given Milan a third attacker -- after Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leão -- who's able to produce more than 0.5 goals+assists per 90 minutes. (That's a rough threshold for Champions League-quality.)
Milan haven't made many good decisions over the past year-plus, but given Gimenez's age, position, and transfer fee, this looks like it's going to be one of them.
5. Omar Marmoush, forward, Manchester City
Age: 25
Original team: Eintracht Frankfurt
Fee: €75m
Market value: €60m
City's biggest problem, now, is that they can't create chances. Perhaps that's because they're devoting too many resources to shore up the defense, but whatever the reason, Marmoush hasn't had the transformative effect it looked like he might after his hat trick against Newcastle United. Across 390 league minutes for City, he's only generated 1.0 xG and 0.7 expected assists.
6. Axel Disasi, defender, Aston Villa
Age: 26
Original team: Chelsea
Fee: €6m loan
Market value: €30m
This was a lot of money for a temporary player, but I'm not judging the deal itself. I'm judging the immediate impact. Villa badly needed some backline depth with the added Champions League matches, and Disasi has pretty much played whenever he's been available for selection.
7. Nico Gonzalez, midfielder, Manchester City
Age: 23
Original team: FC Porto
Fee: €60m
Market value: €18m
Like Khusanov, Gonzalez has helped stabilize City's plummeting defensive performance. With his above-average ability to cover ground and his size, he looks like an NFL free safety compared to City's post-Rodri midfield options. He also just never gives the ball away. But there's also a downside, too.
Per Stats Perform's expected possession-value model, Gonzalez has actually decreased City's chances of scoring with his passing. It's a small sample of only 300 minutes, but he's playing a lot of passes and we can be somewhat confident this is not a tactical thing. Rodri, to whom Pep Guardiola has already compared Gonzalez, frequently ranked near the top of the league by the same metric.
Stevie Nicol details why Manchester City and Pep Guardiola might be better off separating next year.
8. Thiago Almada, attacking midfielder, Lyon
Age: 23
Original team: Botafogo
Fee: No loan fee
Market value: €27m
Before Sunday's win over Nice, he'd taken shots worth 0.13 xG and created chances worth 0.08 expected assists. That's total -- not per 90 minutes. After Sunday's win over Nice, he's up to 0.29 xG+xA -- and that's per 90. He assisted both goals in the 2-0 victory.
9. Marcus Rashford, forward, Aston Villa
Age: 27
Original team: Manchester United
Fee: No loan fee
Market value: €55m
The former England star has only started one league match. And although his underlying numbers look amazing (0.95 non-penalty xG+xA), that's because he's created a couple huge chances in very limited minutes. Rashford has registered two assists and given Villa some attacking depth, but just hasn't played that much.
10. Mathys Tel, forward, Tottenham Hotspur
Age: 19
Original team: Bayern Munich
Fee: €10m
Market value: €30m
It already seems unlikely that Spurs will try to make this move permanent. He didn't play in Tottenham's most recent match against Bournemouth, and his impact has been middling so far. That's probably to be expected from a 19-year-old sent to a new league in the middle of a season, but Ange Postecoglou's tactics seem like they've inflated the numbers of all the other Tottenham attackers.
In that sense, Tel's performance so far might even be worse than than zero goals, zero assists, 0.8 xG, and 0.1 xA indicate.
11. Patrick Dorgu, wing-back, Manchester United
Age: 20
Original team: Lecce
Fee: €30m
Market value: €20m
Even if we ignore the Ipswich Town game, and -- OK, we can't. In the first half that match, Dorgu and André Onana conspired to create a tap-in for the other team and then, a few minutes later Dorgu was sent off for one of the more wild, reckless tackles you'll ever see.
Beyond one of the most disastrous first halves I can remember, Dorgu just hasn't had much of an impact. He's barely created any chances, and if you combine every Manchester United sequence where he's touched the ball, they've ended in chances worth just 0.15 expected goals. Everyone else on this list is at least triple that number -- other than the guy who hasn't played a single minute.
Mark Ogden explains the problems Man United will face if they fail to qualify for Europe next season.
12. Donyell Malen, winger, Aston Villa
Age: 25
Original team: Borussia Dortmund
Fee: €25m
Market value: €28m
All of Aston Villa's loanees have played more than Malen's 170 league minutes. He hasn't scored or assisted a goal yet, and the underlying numbers don't suggest he's been particularly unlucky for that to happen.
13. Evan Ferguson, forward, West Ham United
Age: 20
Original team: Brighton & Hove Albion
Fee: No loan fee
Market value: €40m
He's only played 70 minutes. There's nothing much else to say.
14. Vitor Reis, center-back, Manchester City
Age: 19
Original team: Palmeiras
Fee: €37m
Market value: €14m
He's played zero minutes. There's absolutely nothing else to say.
15. João Félix, forward, AC Milan
Age: 25
Original team: Chelsea
Fee: €5.5m
Market value: €30m
Stop me if you've heard this one before: A soccer club pays a lot more money to acquire the services of Félix than anyone expected or anyone else was offering. Then, Félix immediately plays a lot for the new team, touches the ball a bunch, tricks some fans into thinking he's vaguely exciting, rips off a ton of terrible shots, and actively makes his new team worse. Well, it's happening again!