A new analysis by The Athletic has revealed that Alan Shearer's world-record transfer from Rovers to Newcastle United in 1996 is the Premier League’s biggest ever - at the equivalent of £222m in today's money.

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire and his colleagues at the University of Liverpool have developed a new calculator which accounts for both the Bank of England’s inflation plus the explosion of transfer fees due to the amount of extra TV money in the game now.

About his Ewood departure, Shearer recalled: “I distinctly remember Tim Sherwood, our skipper, asking me how much for and me telling him it was £15 million. He stared at me for a while and then said, ‘Jesus. No pressure there, then!’ I couldn’t do anything apart from laugh.”

The biggest transfers involving Rovers based on the equivalent ‘Modern Cost’ are shown below. Note that the analysis only covers the three most expensive Premier League transfers from each season since 1992 - which might explain the absence of players such as David Batty and Paul Warhurst, who moved to Rovers for over £2m in 1993/94.