10 most expensive players aged 30 plus

#1 Diego Milito - £24.7m, Genoa to Inter Milan, 2009

Diego Milito delivered the goods for Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan

Jose Mourinho, amongst other things, is renowned for having his favourite players – ones he values above others despite other people in the game not really seeing the same attraction. Nemanja Matic, Pepe and Marouane Fellaini come to mind, but one of those men was certainly Argentine striker Diego Milito. Sure, Milito had finished second in the goalscoring charts in 2008/09 to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who departed Inter that summer, but Mourinho signing him for almost £25m still raised some eyebrows.

Inter fans need not have worried. Far from missing Ibrahimovic, Milito replaced him and then some – he scored 30 goals in 52 appearances in 2009/10, including creating two and scoring one in his first Milan derby and scoring six goals in the Champions League – most notably against Barcelona in the semi-finals and then twice against Bayern Munich in the final as Inter won the trophy in a major upset.

By the end of the season, Inter had won a treble; the Scudetto, the Coppa Italia and the Champions League thanks in part to Milito’s goalscoring. Milito was also named as the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year and Serie A’s Footballer of the Year and Foreign Footballer of the Year. Not bad for someone who was past the big 3-0 mark!