A rare contemporary post for BTLM today. The transfer deals during the 2012 close season that took Thiago Silva to Paris St.Germain and Javi Martinez to Bayern Munich were pretty sizeable. Granted, they fell a little short of making the all-time most expensive transfer list, but both players still do qualify for our latest Elevens team – The Half Billion Pound XI.

What we are attempting to do is construct a team from the most expensively acquired players in history, albeit one that will have a coherent shape, a modern formation and will use specialist players in each position. So while there are more expensive players than Thiago Silva and Martinez not selected, the Brazilian and the Spaniard do get the nod because they are the most expensive players in history for their pitch positions.

The players have shirt numbers that match their highest transfer fee in millions of pounds (with some arguments over the desirable number 33 shirt). The exact figures of major transfer deals are always open to dispute, so we have used the most reputable figure for each deal that we can find. It’s only right that this team should be managed by the most expensive manager in the world and André Villas-Boas gets this job thanks to the £13m fee that Chelsea paid to acquire him from Porto. Total team cost, including manager, comes in just £18m short of the half billion pound mark.

BTLM sees this team wearing a gold lamé designer shirt with stripes fashioned from encrusted diamonds. And epaulettes too. If ever there was a team calling out for a shirt with embroidered, tasselled epaulettes, it’s this one.