Exclusive; Ipswich hit gold selling a future European Champion for 1624% profit.
Ipswich Town has had a wild few years, rising from the ashes of relegation to the third division to returning to the top flight for the first time in more than 20 years.
Though the Tractor Boys have seen many ups and downs recently, the team has acquired and let go of a number of talented players.
Ipswich has actually made several significant transactions in recent years, including one player who became a European Champion, despite spending a significant amount of time outside the Premier League.
The largest sales in Ipswich
Let’s examine the two most important sales in the club’s history before moving on to the star in question, who made a huge profit before winning a European championship.
The first is Tyrone Mings, a defender for Aston Villa and an England international who paid £10k to join the Blues from non-league Chippenham in December 2012.
The Bath native made 63 appearances for the then-Conventional team over the course of the following two and a half seasons, primarily as a left-back, before being transferred to Bournemouth in July 2015 for an estimated £8 million, which resulted in a respectable return on the £10k he had originally cost the team.
Just behind the 31-year-old on the list is a footballer who, unfortunately, has not had such a successful career: Wickham, Conor.
The poacher, originally from Hereford and currently without a team, rose through the club’s academy and scored 15 goals and provided four assists in 72 matches for the Suffolk squad between July 2009 and July 2011, before being transferred to Sunderland for an estimated £8 million to £10 million.
Unfortunately for Wickham, he was never able to settle at any of the clubs he continued to defend, with the exception of one of the clubs’ most prestigious sales agreements. The selling of Aaron Cresswell: The defender in question is Aaron Cresswell, a veteran who left Tranmere Rovers for Ipswich in the summer of 2011 on a free transfer.
However, because he wasn’t 24 years old at the time, the club had to pay the Merseysiders’ compensation, which Transfermarkt estimates to be around €275k, or £229k.
Over the next few seasons, the Liverpool native would play 138 games with the Tractor Boys, scoring seven goals and recording an impressive 25 assists. This means that during his time in the azul, he averaged 4.31 games per game.
| Cresswell’s career | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Tranmere | Ipswich | West Ham |
| Appearances | 80 | 138 | 353 |
| Goals | 6 | 7 | 11 |
| Assists | 7 | 25 | 37 |
| Goal Involvements per Match | 0.16 | 0.23 | 0.13 |
| All Stats via Transfermarkt | |||
Surprisingly, his impressive performance drew the attention of Premier League clubs, and in July 2014, West Ham United moved the Englishman to East London for a fee estimated by Transfermarkt to be around £3.95 million, or a significant 1624% increase on the original agreement.
Over the last decade, the 34-year-old has become a legend for the Hammers, having played 353 games with the team, scoring 11 goals, assisting 37 times, and playing a crucial role in the Europa Conference League victory in season 22/23, logging 517 minutes of play in seven games.
Finally, the transaction of selling Cresswell to West Ham in 2014 was beneficial to all parties involved, as Ipswich received a tiny profit, the Hammers gained a loyal employee, and the footballer himself was named European Champion.
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