AnalysisJune 4, 2026 12:12 am EDT Updated It’s time to look out wide and into the attacking third as we move into the penultimate Transfer Tier.Over the last week, we have taken you inside a recruitment room for the summer window and talked you through the top nine options for goalkeepers, central defenders, full-backs, central midfielders and attacking midfielders.Today, we are looking at wide forwards.Welcome to The Athletic’s Transfer Tiers. We’ve assembled a panel of experts to put together a list of players in each position heading into the summer. With the knowledge of those experts, we think we have pulled together a fairly comprehensive list of the top nine players that will be under consideration in each role going into the window.Want to read more about our methodology? That can be found here.Based on that methodology, our understanding of the wide forward market can be found below.Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three can be divided into elite clubs, those from the level just below and the wealthy middle-class, respectively. But it is worth remembering that if the other options move or are unavailable, elite sides could quite easily fit a Tier Three player into their teams.Inclusion here does not mean a player wants to move or that they are necessarily going to be available this summer. However, it is who our experts, which includes sporting and technical directors, coaches, scouts, intermediaries, analysts and, in a few instances, people with important local knowledge, would present in a recruitment meeting going into the window.The expert view”I would hate to play against him. He’s so smart, always finding space, but he also doesn’t stop and he’s one of those guys who just comes back and back and back. You don’t see that on TV.”A former International defender.Alvarez is a world-class player who has performed to a very high standard in the Premier League, the World Cup and currently La Liga. Of the 40 respondents who returned their surveys before our deadline, 25 picked Alvarez in Tier One. It’s as conclusive as it gets.Alvarez is a familiar enough player to do away with the description — everybody knows who is, what he does and how well he does it — but it is worth adding that among those who left him off, there was the suggestion that a transfer to Barcelona was a formality.That’s not The Athletic’s understanding of that situation, but it’s pertinent because of that assumption’s potential influence on the voting.InfoAge: 26Current club: Atletico MadridThe expert viewBarcola was the subject of serious interest last summer. Elite clubs made approaches but they were given short shrift — by Paris Saint-Germain, who had no interest in a sale, and by Barcola, who was not interested in leaving.This summer, who knows? Barcola moved to Parc des Princes in 2023 and, despite some of the most serious competition in Europe, has enjoyed healthy pitch time, domestically and in Europe.Last season, he started 14 of PSG’s Champions League games on their way to the trophy. This season, he began 12 of 17, meaning that he has little need for a move; there’s no sense of him being lost in a decadent squad. That being said, a player of his calibre not starting a Champions League final — Desire Doue was preferred against Arsenal — is unusual and means that a move cannot be discounted.He was another unanimous selection. Among those who selected him — a genuine cross-section of the industry (scouts, coaches, former managers, agents, and regional journalists) — all saw him as a Tier One player, who belongs at the very top of the game.Like Julian Alvarez before him, there’s no argument. Combined, his speed, skill and tangible production make Barcola as dangerous as any wide forward playing the game today.InfoAge: 23Current club: Paris Saint-GermainThe expert view“The price tag is massive, but teams who can afford him will also see him as an investment of sorts, because he’s still getting better. Look at the player he was a few years ago. Look at him now. Then imagine what he might be in two or three years’ time. It doesn’t always work like that, but that will be the thinking.”A European football intermediary.Yan Diomande has come a long way extremely quickly. In the summer of 2025, he joined RB Leipzig for €20m. Just six months before, the Ivorian — who spent his latter teen years at an academy in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the United Premier Soccer League — had joined Leganes on a free transfer.Diomande spent a handful of games with the club’s second team, but needed just ten appearances for the first team (in La Liga) to alert Leipzig’s data scouts and convince the club that his release clause needed activating.A year on, that has proven an excellent decision. A slashing, two-footed winger, who can play with guile and force and reach top speed quickly from a standing start, Diomande scored 12 goals and provided eight assists in his first season in Germany, and was voted the Bundesliga’s Rookie of the Year.InfoAge: 19Current club: RB LeipzigThe expert view“One word: consistency.”A freelance scout and analyst in Germany.Nobody placed Leao in Tier One; he was in Tier Two exclusively. That’s partly attributable to the quality of players available in his position. Anthony Gordon was originally part of it, too, before completing his move to Barcelona.Much of Leao’s reputation also depends upon his form from a few years ago. Nobody would dispute that he was instrumental in Milan winning the Italian league in 2021-22 or that Leao was a defining factor again and again that season. However, it’s also not contentious to say that he has been chasing that kind of momentum ever since — and unsuccessfully.He scored 15 goals in the 2021-22 season — many of them incredibly watchable — but he has never again reached double figures in a league campaign.He remains a potentially excellent player, but now in mid-career, with an intermittent impact that the market does not seem to wholly trust, younger options have moved ahead of him.InfoAge: 26Current club: AC MilanThe expert viewSomething that was said again and again during this exercise: the World Cup does not really matter. Clubs do not use major tournaments for talent identification any more, and their transfer plans are decided well in advance. Where it can have an impact is upon valuations and negotiating positions.Iliman Ndiaye is potentially a pertinent example of that. He and Senegal are grouped with France, Norway and Iraq this summer and will do well to qualify for the knockout stage. If they do, Ndiaye, who is well established as a destructive, sometimes brilliant ball-carrier and a hard-working attacker out of possession, would certainly have to be influential and would, as a result, grow his reputation and change the complexion of the market around him.His dribbling and defensive abilities were mentioned by respondents as positives, although there were mixed perspectives on his distribution. The range of attacking positions he’s able to play seemed important, too. Reasonably so. Ndiaye played on the left and right sides for David Moyes’ Everton this season and was occasionally used in a central role of their 4-2-3-1.InfoAge: 26Current club: EvertonThe expert viewThe best player in Belgium this year. Tzolis is primarily used by Club Brugge from the left-hand side, from which he produced a goal or assist roughly every 99 minutes during the Pro League’s 2025-26 regular season.As with any player from Belgium, it is difficult to understand the context within which his success has occurred. Tzolis got his move to Brugge on the back of an explosive season on loan with Fortuna Dusseldorf in the German 2.Bundesliga, so that’s no help either, and his only exposure to English football was a difficult 18 months at Norwich City which, in hindsight, came much too early in his career.That was three years ago. In that time, he has become physically broader, quicker, and has refined his goal threat. Tzolis is a danger on his right foot, but also his left and often from distance. There’s variation to his game, too. He has some craft to supplement his dynamism, and whenever it happens, that will make him the most expensive player in Belgian football history when he leaves.And that fee is important; it was brought up by several of our respondents when we followed up. Brugge will certainly want to recoup more than the €37.5m they received from AC Milan for Charles De Ketelaere in 2022, but that could be a relatively modest fee for teams in this Tier and make Tzolis’ transition to a higher league less of a gamble.InfoAge: 24Current club: Club BruggeThe expert viewBowen received plenty of Tier Two votes, just not quite enough to get ahead of Christos Tzolis. Nevertheless, our experts believe that he belongs somewhere between the upper mid-table and the Champions League placings, depending on the league.Realistically, that will probably mean an English team. Our survey began before West Ham’s relegation was confirmed, meaning that the potential consequences might not be reflected fully.For instance, beyond his personal ambition, if the club are now under greater pressure to sell, it could make Bowen an affordable option — theoretically — for a club higher up the table, with greater priority targets in his position.InfoAge: 29Current club: West Ham UnitedThe expert viewHoffenheim’s Bazoumana Toure has been a triumph in this season’s Bundesliga. His club just missed out on Champions League qualification, but he still established himself among the quickest and most impactful wingers in the league.Toure is a very left-footed player, to the point where that can sometimes be a limitation, but he’s also an outstanding crosser and was a source of craft for a team, last season, that was built primarily on physicality and dynamism.His progress through the game has been extremely quick; less than eighteen months ago, he was playing for Hammarby in the Allsvenskan (the top flight of Swedish football). The result is perhaps some trepidation over whether his form is sustainable — he appeared solely in Tier Three — but in this category, he received only one fewer vote than Jarrod Bowen.So, there’s conviction, even relative to a proven Premier League performer.InfoAge: 20Current club: HoffenheimThe expert viewAkliouche appeared in all three Tiers and was actually in fifth place in Tier Two. He is also one of very few Ligue 1 players to appear anywhere on our list which, given the depth of talent currently in France, was a surprise.Akliouche is a name most will recognise. He is arguably the most talented player in what has proven to be a fairly mediocre Monaco side, which has just limped to a seventh-placed finish in the league and sacked their head coach.No matter. While there’s some debate about whether Akliouche is a wide-forward or attacking-midfielder — he probably sits just between the two categories — he is a highly creative passer-carrier who can also finish to a high standard.Given the spread of responses, he might be an example of someone who will appeal to all sorts of clubs, in different ways, with different roles in mind. Nobody made the case for him being an outright starter at Tier One level, but if there was a consensus, then it was that he had the talent to be of value almost anywhere.InfoAge: 24Current club: MonacoJun 4, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms