Are City or Liverpool the bigger spenders?

Simon Jordan claimed on TalkSport, “Klopp’s net spend is £28m-a-year, Pep’s is £100m-a-year.  The Swiss Ramble examines this claim.

In thae period since Klopp arrived at Liverpool in October 2015, City have reported £656m net spend, averaging £131m a year, which is over twice as much as Liverpool £318m (£64m average). In fact, Liverpool have also been outspent in this period by Man United £630m, Chelsea £465m, Arsenal £428m and Everton £359m.

In terms of gross spend, City have spent just under a billion in the last five years, the same as Chelsea, while Liverpool’s outlay is only around two-thirds as much at £660m. Even on a gross basis, the Reds are below under-performing Man United £850m and Arsenal £676m.

So Simon’s estimate of £100m annual net spend was fairly close for Pep (£115m), but significantly understated Klopp at £28m (actually £62m.

In terms of wages, Liverpool are much closer to City with their £1.4 bnn in the 5 years up to 2020/21 being just 9% lower than City’s £1.5 bn.

In conclusion, Simon Jordan is correct that Klopp’s net spend is lower than Pep’s (though not by as much as he said), but a more meaningful comparison would also consider wages. On that basis, Pep has still spent more, but the difference is far smaller.