Hey big spender!

Now that the dust has settled from the transfer window it is worth looking at the pattern of spending courtesy of the authoritative Swiss Ramble.  These are just highlights: for comprehensive coverage subscribe to his Substack blog which covers all the European leagues including minor ones.

Liverpool’s £459m spend in the transfer window was the third highest of all time, only surpassed by Chelsea’s massive spending since Boehly and co arrived (£745m in 2022/23 and £553m in 2023/24).

Liverpool had the highest gross spend of £393m, followed by Chelsea £284m and Arsenal £254m, though six clubs in total spent more than £200m.  The three promoted clubs all spent a fair amount, led by Sunderland’s £163m, though Burnley £117m and Leeds United £98m did not exactly hold back either. The lowest gross spend of the Big Six was Manchester City’s £179m, though this was partly because they were very active in the previous January window.

On the other hand, three clubs spent less than £50m: Crystal Palace £48m, Fulham £39m and Aston Villa £35m. The Midlands club faced PSR challenges after a few years of high spending, though these regulations were in general not a major factor this summer.

The other side of the coin for a couple of the big spenders was player sales, where Chelsea once again demonstrated their amazing knack of getting a lot of money from their deals, adding up to £294m, while Liverpool made an impressive £191m.

However, the second best in terms of player sales was Bournemouth with a striking £206m, while five other Premier League clubs generated more than £100m from player sales this summer, namely Newcastle United £152m, Brentford £137m, Brighton £135m, Wolves £122m and Nottingham Forest £109m.

A few factors influenced the high player sales this summer. Apart from the obvious PSR benefits, given the nature of player trading accounting, many transfers were driven by players effectively downing tools, e.g. Isak at Newcastle and Yoane Wissa at Brentford, while some clubs had to somehow move on players that had been demoted to their “bomb squads”, rather than continue to carry their wages.

Although Liverpool were comfortably the biggest spenders on a gross basis, it was Arsenal that had the highest net spend of £245m, ahead of the Scousers’ £201m, then Manchester United £153m and Tottenham £147m.

Sunderland’s £118m highlighted how much a promoted club has to spend if it wants to have a realistic chance of being competitive in the Premier League, especially if it has been out of England’s top flight for many years.  Seven clubs actually had net sales, especially Bournemouth £86m, Brighton £65m and Brentford £52m.

Five year comparison

Extending the analysis to cover five years shows that Chelsea spent just over £2.0 bn, an unprecedented amount, and nearly twice as much as any other club in this period. The other places in the top five are filled by the traditional elite: Manchester United £1.1 bn, Arsenal £1.1 bn, Manchester City £1.1 bn, Tottenham £989m and Liverpool £899m.  Put another way, even though Liverpool were comfortably the biggest spenders this summer, over a 5-year period, they are actually the lowest of the Big Six.

The next highest spenders are a couple of clubs that have been striving to break through the glass ceiling, namely Newcastle United £856m and Aston Villa £704m.

Not a single Premier League club had net sales in this period, though Everton’s net spend was a paltry £48m, less than half of the next lowest club, Wolves £109m. Both these clubs have tried to offset huge operating losses via player trading in an attempt to avoid PSR breaches.

England’s top flight spent more than the next four largest leagues combined, as the remaining members of the so-called “Big Five” were even further back: Bundesliga £741m, La Liga £590m and Ligue 1 £573m.

There was a resurgence in the Saudi Pro League’s recruitment drive with £410m gross spend (with three weeks to go before its transfer window slams shut), which put them ahead of Primeira Liga £292m, Eredivisie £190m and Jupiler Pro League £112m. England’s second tier, the EFL Championship, came in at £268m.

The highest outlay by a non-English club was Bayer Leverkusen, whose £172m placed them ninth, followed by Atlético Madrid £152m, Real Madrid £145m and Milan £138m.

To highlight the depth of strength in the Premier League, Sunderland actually spent more than Real Madrid, while Bournemouth’s outlay was higher than Juventus, whihc is not something you would have expected a few years ago.

It is clear that the Big Six has decided to flex its financial muscles in the face of the increasing threat from the likes of Aston Villa and Newcastle United, not to mention the potential shown by the likes of Brighton and Bournemouth.

There were many good reasons for Liverpool to buy Isak, but depriving one of their rivals of their best player was an added bonus and a clear “power play”. This is the approach that has helped keep Bayern Munich at the top of the tree in Germany for many years.

The three promoted clubs have all spent a lot of money this summer to boost their chances of survival. In the past two seasons all three teams that came up from the Championship went straight back down, so this has to be a serious concern.  Money does not guarantee success, but looking at the transfer spend in the season after promotion, it is clear that those clubs who have spent the most have largely been the ones that have done best.

When new owners acquire a club, they usually want to make a statement of intent by strengthening the squad, as seen by the arrival of the Friedkins at Everton, who spent more this summer than the last two seasons combined.   Over the last few years, this has also been the case at Bournemouth, Newcastle United and Nottingham.

Championship

Two of the clubs relegated from the Premier League last season had the highest gross spend, namely Ipswich Town £51m and Southampton £48m, while Leicester City have really slammed on the brakes after their various PSR issues, only bringing in free transfers and loanees.  Three other clubs spent more than £20m, namely Norwich City £25m, Wrexham £24m and Middlesbrough £20m.

The highest player sales in the Championship are nearly always made by the clubs relegated from the Premier League, as seen again this summer: Southampton £111m (Mateus Fernandes and Tyler Dibling), Ipswich Town £76m (Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson) and Leicester City £47m (Mads Hermansen).  Four other clubs sold more than £20m, namely Norwich City £32m, Middlesbrough £25m, Sheffield United £21m and WBA £20m. Every other club made less than £10m from player sales.

The club with the highest net spend this summer was Hollywood’s own Wrexham with £24m, which was more than twice as much as Charlton Athletic £10m and Derby County £8m.

The eight highest gross spends worldwide this summer were all made by English clubs, while no fewer than 13 of the top 20 spending clubs came from the Premier League, so this is very much a case of strength in depth.  Whether this enormous expenditure actually results in success on the pitch remains to be seen,