Manchester United news: Paul Pogba cost £12.7m too much and Eric Bailly was the most over-priced purchase

Pogba returned to Old Trafford in a record-breaking deal worth around £89m last month

Manchester United paid £12.7m too much when breaking the world-record transfer fee for Paul Pogba, according to a study.

Pogba, 23, returned to Old Trafford from Juventus in a record-breaking deal worth approximately £89m last month.

However, according to the CIES Football Observatory, a research group based in Switzerland, United paid over the odds for their marquee summer signing.

The transfer of Eric Bailly to United, meanwhile, was apparently the most over-priced of any in the Premier League’s summer window.

Despite making a promising start to his United career, Bailly, who joined from Villarreal for a reported fee of £32.3m in June, apparently cost around £19.7m too much.

The purchase of the Ivorian ranked as the second-most over-priced across the whole European football this summer, behind only Gonzalo Higuain’s £76.5m move to Juventus.

The group's findings are based on a statistical model which uses a player's key characteristics (e.g. age, position, length of contract) and performance data to calculate their estimated value. This figure is then compared to actual transfer fees.

Premier League transfers dominate the CIES's European-wide rankings, making up eight of the top 10.

Yannick Bolasie’s £24.5m switch from Crystal Palace to Everton cost £18.8m too much, while Granit Xhaka’s £38.3m move to Arsenal represented a £17.8m 'overpayment'.

Chelsea's deadline day captures of David Luiz and Marcos Alonso were also costly - £16.6m and £14m too much respectively.

The 'overpayments' are presented and ranked by CIES as additional sums of cash rather than as a percentage of the fee. If the latter measurement were to be used, the Pogba 'overpayment' would be just 14 per cent.

Take a look at the Premier League’s 10 most over-priced transfers this summer in the gallery above.