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.
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