Which clubs got best and worst value from their budget?

Which Premier League clubs performed best and worst in relation to their budget?

One measure is how much each club paid in wages for each point gained in the Premier League. As an example, Manchester United’s wages were £384m, while they registered 75 points in the league, so they effectively paid £5.1m for each point.

On this basis, Brentford were in a class of their own, paying just £1.2m wages per point, ahead of the other club renowned for the quality of its data analytics, Brighton £1.9m. Thanks to their excellent performance on the pitch, Aston Villa £2.2m and Newcastle United £2.4m also did well here. In contrast, Leicester City paid a chunky £5.4m per point.

If we restrict the analysis to the Big Six, Arsenal’s performance was the best by far with only £2.5m per point. At the other end of the spectrum, we find Chelsea with £7.7m, comfortably the worst in the top flight.

Clubs can also be ranked by comparing their final position in the Premier League with the position implied by their wage bill.  Once again, Brentford and Brighton shine here with both clubs finishing nine places better: Brentford came 9th in the league compared to the 18th highest wage bill; while Brighton finished 6th vs. 15th highest wages.

The worst under-performances were Leicester City -11 places (18th vs 7th highest wage bill), Everton - eight places, Chelsea - eight places and Leeds United - six places.   Four of the Big Six did worse than implied by their wage bill with the exceptions being Arsenal +3 places (2nd vs. 5th highest wage bill) and Manchester City +2 (1st vs. 3rd highest wage bill).

The real stand-out for squad cost per point were Chelsea, who paid a chunky £20.9m for each of their 44 points, followed by Manchester City £12.1m. Even though City notched up an impressive 89 points, they had by far the highest squad cost, so score badly on this ratio.

In fairness, this is a metric where the leading clubs are always likely to look bad, as seen by four of the Big Six being in the bottom five places. The best performing here was again Arsenal with just £7.7m.

Chelsea have massively outspent every other club in the last five years with £1.3 bln, including an eye-watering £539m in 2022/23. This is almost half a billion more than the next club, Manchester United £762m.

Maybe surprising to some, Arsenal are next highest with £753m, just ahead of Manchester City £742m. Liverpool’s £574m is the lowest of the Big Six, even behind the notoriously parsimonious Tottenham £577m.   Aston Villa are the fifth highest spenders with £579m, much more than other aspirational clubs like Brentford £147m and Brighton £283m. Crystal Palace’s outlay was also very low at £189m.

Looking at transfers does change the rankings for a few clubs, though the story remains very much the same for others, especially Brentford who still provide the best value for money under this metric with £2.5m per point. Crystal Palace are in second place with £4.2m, just ahead of their great rivals Brighton £4.6m.    Given their record-breaking spend of over half a billion this season, it’s no surprise that Chelsea look awful here with their £28.4m per point costing them more than twice as much as any other club.

The club that get most “bang for its buck” is "drum roll” Brentford, as they have performed best in every single one of our categories.  At the other end of the table we have Chelsea, whose huge transfer spend last season took just took them past Leicester City in the race for the wooden spoon.

Looking only at the Big Six, there is another clear winner, namely Arsenal, who came top in three out of the four categories, only missing out on transfer spend.  Of the other clubs, Brighton were a clear second, only beaten by Brentford, though Newcastle United and Crystal Palace also did well relative to their financials.

As might be expected, the three related clubs look bad, but Everton were the second worst performing club compared to budget, even though they narrowly avoided the drop.

It looks like the data-driven strategy employed by Brentford and Brighton has worked out pretty well, showing that well-run clubs can at least compete with the big boys, based on smart recruitment and good coaching.  On the other hand, the jury is very much out on whether Chelsea can justify the immense investment in the squad since Todd Boehly’s arrival.