The five best free agents in each position available after the 2024 summer transfer window

With the transfer deadline having passed, Premier League clubs could be considering which free agents they could sign if they still have any gaps in their squad.

Buying players will not be possible until January, but free agents can sign for a new team at any time, so some players who remain unattached will be looking for their routes back into competitive action.

Here, TEAMtalk provides a summary of some notable free agents. We’ve chosen five per position, but would you want to sign any of them for your club or have the best all already been taken?

Goalkeepers

• Keylor Navas remains a free agent after his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expired at the end of the 2023-24 season. Formerly with Real Madrid and Nottingham Forest, he is now 37 years old.
• Loris Karius, 31, was released by Newcastle at the end of last season. The former Liverpool goalkeeper has not endured a season with regular football since 2019-20, when he was at Besiktas.
• Darren Randolph, 37, has not made any appearances over the last four seasons, the last two of which were with Bournemouth before they released him.
• 35-year-old former Barcelona product Jordi Masip spent seven years at Valladolid, the last being in the Spanish second tier in which he started frequently.
• Now 37, Wayne Hennessey was released by Nottingham Forest in the summer, after spending a decade as a Premier League player.

Right-backs

• Cedric Soares is available at the age of 33 after being let go by Arsenal in the summer.
• Former Manchester United defender Timothy Fosu-Mensah, 26, was unused by Bayer Leverkusen last season and then released by the Bundesliga champions.
• 31-year-old Serge Aurier, formerly of Tottenham and Nottingham Forest, left Galatasaray a few months ago.
• Bouna Sarr encountered various injury issues during his four-year spell with Bayern Munich.
• Injuries have also overshadowed Ryan Fredericks’ career of late, leading to his Bournemouth exit in the summer.

Centre-backs

• After his second spell with Sevilla ended, Spain legend Sergio Ramos remains without a club.
• Ex-Leicester man Daniel Amartey, who can also play in midfield, only spent one season at Besiktas before being released at the age of 29.
• Another Leicester old boy, Filip Benkovic, is still only 27 and available after leaving Udinese, who had loaned him to Trabzonspor last season.
• Simon Kjaer, famously part of Denmark’s Euro 2020 squad, left AC Milan at the age of 35 this summer.
• James Tomkins featured sparsely towards the end of his Crystal Palace spell, but the 35-year-old has 289 Premier League appearances behind him.

Left-backs

• Real Madrid and Brazil legend Marcelo, now 36, terminated his contract with Fluminense in November.
• Brandon Williams, once a big prospect at Manchester United, needs a new club after spending last season on loan at Ipswich Town.
• Layvin Kurzawa left PSG this summer and, funnily enough, was linked with PSV.
• Former Leeds favourite Ezgjan Alioski’s spell with Al-Ahli recently came to an end.
• Ivory Coast international Ghislain Konan, 28, recently left Saudi side Al-Nassr after a loan spell at Al-Fayha.

Midfielders

• Dele Alli reached the end of his Everton contract in the summer as well after making no appearances last season, but he hasn’t given up hope of reviving his career and could yet earn a new deal at Goodison Park.
• Former Arsenal midfielder Francis Coquelin has over 100 LaLiga appearances to his name between spells with Valencia and Villarreal, but the latter did not renew the 33-year-old’s contract this summer.
• 34-year-old Cheikhou Kouyate spent the past 10 seasons in the Premier League, with West Ham, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.
• Christoph Kramer, who won the World Cup with Germany in 2014, is available after eight years of service to Borussia Monchengladbach.
• Former Fiorentina midfielder Marco Benassi endured loan spells with the likes of Empoli and Cremonese before leaving the Serie A side in the summer and turning 30 in September.

Wingers

• Ryan Kent has been released by Fenerbahce after a mutual agreement to terminate the former Liverpool and Rangers winger’s contract in October.
• Alireza Jahanbakhsh fared better with Feyenoord than he ever did with Brighton, but the 31-year-old Iran captain is looking for a new club.
• Samu Castillejo, who has represented some fairly big clubs in Spain and Italy, was offloaded by Valencia after spending last season with Sassuolo.
• One-time Liverpool wide man Rafael Camacho is still only 24, but hasn’t played since 2023 and was cut adrift by Sporting CP.
• Aleix Vidal once played for the likes of Sevilla and Barcelona, but the versatile wide man has now had more than a year out of the game after Espanyol released him in 2023.

Strikers

• Wissam Ben Yedder may be 34 now but still managed to score 20 goals for Monaco last season before being released.
• Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting has taken in PSG and Bayern Munich since his Stoke City days, so what comes next for the 35-year-old?
• Former Real Madrid striker Mariano Diaz, 31, was let go by Sevilla after a goalless season.
• Rangers released former Leeds United forward Kemar Roofe, still only 31, after a four-year spell.
• Uruguay international Maxi Gomez once occupied plenty of transfer gossip columns but is without a club after leaving Trabzonspor, following a loan spell at Cadiz.

MORE INFORMATION: When does the January 2025 transfer window open? Everything you need to know