Welcome back to transfer grades. Today’s edition is on the top 5 Bundesliga teams, who all had at least a couple of significant ins and outs.

If you missed it yesterday, we graded the top 5 teams in La Liga. Tomorrow’s grades will feature 5 of the biggest teams in Italy, and we’ll finish the series with a wild card edition on Friday.

On to the grades:

The Bundesliga’s most active team has significantly overhauled their squad with a mix of prime age signings and youngsters for the future. It looks like an enormous outlay, but between this year’s sales and last year’s massive outgoings, Bayer continue to be quite a reasonable club in the market.

Doue has been a solid defensive performer for Strasbourg over the past couple seasons. I’m not in love with paying this much for a fullback without elite attacking output, but between his age and athletic profile, I don’t hate it either.

Moreira was a playmaking machine for Lyon last season, and he’s already looking dangerous in his new colors. The 22-year-old looks worth every penny.

Diaby is a questionable sentimental return after a mediocre spell at Aston Villa and subsequent move to the Saudi Pro League, where he also was not that productive. This is a bad signing.

Gutierrez is a good all-around attacking left back, but he feels expensive for a guy who was 2nd choice for Napoli last season. Same for Medina coming in at center back from Marseille. They’re OK; it feels like Leverkusen could have attracted better players or negotiated cheaper prices for these two.

The teenagers are teenagers and we’ll have to wait and see, but Eichhorn is one of the more hyped up ones in recent memory, and getting him ahead of richer clubs feels like a pretty significant coup.

Overall, a real mixed bag. Some obvious winners and some signings I strongly dislike. They filled out their squad with experienced system fits, but this group lacks ceiling raisers. —KM

Grade: B-

Exquisite sales. Got top dollar for all of these guys, including a couple of injury-prone aging players and an 18-year-old lottery ticket. —KM

Grade: A+

I’m going to weight the buys a little more than the sales, just because there were so many of them and a couple of the big outgoings were players who were not contributors for Bayer last season. Overall, I’d say they solidified, but did not get much better. Moreira is the clear gem of the bunch, and the success of this window is probably predicated on him reaching his potential. —KM

Overall grade: B

With a deep squad full of prime-age players, Bayern went on a little bit of a diet and decided to run it back, for the most part.

Saibari put up utterly bananas stats in the Eredivisie last season, and scored some impressive goals in the Champions League as well, including a 0.02 xG banger against… Bayern Munich. I am scared about stats translating from PSV to Bayern, and really scared about a guy not properly breaking out until his age 25 season, but his production from last year was undeniably elite. You could sell me either way on this one.

Brown is a super talented all-around left back who’s shown an ability to be a traditional defender or play in a more advanced position. I loved him for Frankfurt and Germany last year and think he’s a no-brainer, easy W signing for the Bavarians.

The one thing knocking this grade down is that they’re very obviously short a striker. It won’t matter if Harry Kane continues to give them 50+ games and 3800+ minutes this season, but counting on a 33-year-old to do that again coming off of a World Cup year feels insane. —KM

Grade: B

Hey, that’s several albatrosses off the books. Good for you.

Bayern pretty frequently avoid the need to make a Big Sale by making quite a bit of money from selling backups and youth players, and they’ve done so again this year. —KM

Grade: B+

Competent, but the one big miss is kind of hanging over everything. —KM

Overall grade: B

This was the kind of window you’d associate with Borussia Dortmund 10 years ago (complimentary). The only difference is that they have spent significantly more than they brought in, though that is a reflection of them losing their way in recent years and straying away from signing exciting international youngsters. The same cannot be said of this batch of signings.

While Dortmund have paid four fees of around €20m or greater, they haven’t overspent on any single player. Konstantinos Karetsas at €30m is the most expensive acquisition, but that’s a justifiable fee for such a promising 18-year-old with an already noteworthy body of work. 23-year-old Giannis Konstantelias would have been brought in as a more reliable contributor, coming on the back of three consecutive double-digit goal seasons. The two are also good profile fits for the inside forward roles in Niko Kovač’s 3-4-2-1 system, but the trouble is the latter has already suffered a long-term injury, while the former had to be stretchered off due to ‘circulatory problems’ in the Champions League opener. As a result, BVB struck a season-long loan deal for Ethan Nwaneri in September, which is about as good a short-term solution as you can hope for so late in the window.

Joey Veerman is the only newcomer aged over 23 years old, and will be expected to provide a good deal of creative output. Among others, Joane Gadou’s interesting physical profile makes him a high-potential talent, while both South Americans are intriguing bets at reasonable prices. —NS

Grade: A-

There is nothing major to complain about among Dortmund’s sales either. Of course, they would have liked to earn a higher fee for Karim Adeyemi, but their hands were rather tied by the fact that he was entering the final year of his contract. Moving on the likes of Niklas Süle, Julian Brandt and Salih Özcan frees up a good chunk of wages while bringing down the squad’s average age, all without losing anything too significant in terms of output from last season (Brandt was the only noteworthy contributor with 11 league goal involvements).

I’m not sure I would have loaned out Yan Couto without signing a replacement, as that leaves the squad short of depth at right wing-back behind Julian Ryerson. The sale of Julien Duranville will also be disappointing. While he has plenty of time yet to launch his career, his signing will have to go down as a flop for the club given the fact that they paid Anderlecht €13m for him three years ago. The Cole Campbell deal with a buyback clause valid for two years, on the other hand, looks well-structured for all involved. —NS

Grade: B

Aside from the lack of depth at right wing-back, Borussia Dortmund’s squad looks in good shape after this window. They have made improvements both in terms of the age profile and stylistic fits of players, all while bringing some promising youngsters to the Westfalenstadion. They also reacted well to some misfortune in terms of injuries, and as long as they avoid a serious crisis, they have set themselves well on course for second place. After all the drama of his predecessors, new sporting director Ole Book appears to have been the right appointment. —NS

Overall grade: B+

Leipzig are making a real bet on Maxime Estève to be a top notch central defender for them. He showed promise previously in the Championship with Burnley and Ligue 1 with Montpellier, but it was tough sledding for him (and the whole squad) in the Premier League last season. Rocco Reitz and Neil El Aynaoui could help bolster the midfield and become value deals. Marc Guiu wasn’t able to find his footing in the Premier League, but moving to an attacking friendly league might be the thing to boost his stature. Reports indicate a sizable sell-on clause is included in the deal, which cuts into the best case scenarios from Leipzig’s perspective.

Perhaps the biggest move completed was Christopher Nkunku’s return from Milan on loan. The past few years have been tough for him, but being in Leipzig once again might revitalize his career. There’s a world where the option does get picked up, but he’d have to reclaim most of his former glory for it to become a real possibility. —MM

Grade: B-

The outgoings were dominated by two major sales. By the end of last season, everyone knew Yan Diomandé’s price would reach an astonishing level following an electric age 18 season in a Leipzig shirt. While keeping him for another year would’ve been nice, it’s hard to turn down a transfer fee that’s in the nine figures when compared to the price they paid just a year prior. Getting a significant chunk of change from Juventus for Loïs Openda is stunning given the decline in form since 2024.

As mentioned in the Villarreal section, Péter Gulácsi’s long run with Leipzig came to an end this summer and he left for Spain. Losing midfielder Xaver Schlager on a free does sting a bit. Meanwhile, there were loan spells away from Leipzig once again for Lutsharel Geertruida and Eljif Elmas in the hopes of getting some of their money back next summer. —MM

Grade: A-

I don’t mind the signings Leipzig made, with Reitz’s acquisition being the one I arguably like the most. I’m not sure any are a slam dunk though. Getting a ton of money for Diomandé and Openda was great work (arguably even more so for the latter). Those two deals did a lot to boost Leipzig’s overall grade, even though questions still remain over how they can make the jump towards European football’s elite. —MM

Overall grade: B

With Champions League football on the menu once again, Stuttgart primarily bolstered their depth through youth. Triggering Bilal El Khannouss’s buy option following his loan spell from Leicester looks to be a massive steal. Leo Sauer’s signing is a bet on upside with the flashes shown in the Eredivisie.

The biggest gamble was on Dzenan Pejčinović, paying a sizable fee to Wolfsburg to acquire the young forward. It’ll be interesting to see how much game time he gets since Deniz Undav and Ermedin Demirović are still in the squad. An under the radar move was signing veteran midfielder Grischa Prömel on a free transfer, since he had a very good 25-26 season with Hoffenheim. —MM

Grade: B+

The good news if you’re a Stuttgart fan is the club was able to maintain the likes of Angelo Stiller, Josha Vagnoman, and Jamie Leweling for another season. Those are three quality players who’ve helped guide the German side to CL qualification in 2024 and 2026. Stiller and Vagnoman both have contracts that reportedly expire in 2028, which can lower a future sale should a renewal not be a possibility. However, there is something to be said of having at least one more competitive go with them in the fold.

However, they did sell highly touted youngster Chema Andrés to Brighton in a late move. Real Madrid’s 50% sell-on clause ate into the sale, and while the German club still made a profit from the €5 million they paid last summer, they were hoping to get another year from him to help boost the eventual sale price. Stuttgart did fine on fees for Jovan Milosevic and Lazar Jovanovic, two young forwards who didn’t have a pathway to consistent gametime. Alexander Nübel’s successful multi-year loan spell from Bayern Munich came to an end, so there will be a new starting goalkeeper for 2026-27. —MM

Grade: B-

El Khannouss’ permanent transfer was a steal, so long as he gets anywhere close to replicating last year’s form. If one of Pejčinović or Sauer hit the ground running, you could boost the incoming grade even higher. There is the risk of volatility with leaning towards youth recruitment, but these gambles make sense. Losing Andrés was tough, but keeping the prime age stars for another season should provide a respectable floor for performance. All in all, Stuttgart showed themselves to be agile movers in trying to balance the present and future. —MM

Overall grade: B

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