Isn't it wonderful to see a relatively unkown player arrive in the Premier League for peanuts and emerge as one of the best players we have seen in the top-flight or even become legends at their respective clubs?

So far this season, we've seen Swansea's £2.5 million signing Michu show the early signs of exactly that, which got me thinking of the some of the best bargain buys of all time in the Premier League.

Not including free transfers, I managed to find 20 of what I think are the best and most influential bargains the Premier League has ever seen. My chosen twenty have made approximately 4000 Premier League appearances combined and scored a grand total of around 1100 goals, while they also share 32 Premier League winners medals.

For a combined transfer total of what Cristiano Ronaldo is worth, that's not a bad return on investment.

Click on everyone's favourite bacon-lover Peter Schmeichel to see the full list of bargains

Peter Schmeichel