Premier League clubs have broken their all-time summer transfer record after spending reached £3.46bn.
English top flight clubs had already pushed well beyond the £3bn barrier when Iliman Ndiaye’s move from Everton to Manchester City on deadline day for an initial £60m took the amount spent past the previous mark of £3.14bn from 12 months ago.
Enzo Fernandez’s move from Chelsea to Manchester City for a joint-British transfer record fee of £125m was then confirmed shortly after the transfer window closed.
A total of £475m was spent on deadline day itself, up from £391m last year.
The total amount spent during the window considerably dwarfs the £1.13bn spent by clubs just five years ago and underlines the power top English clubs have to attract talent, according to figures provided to BBC Sport by Paul Macdonald, founder of FootballTransfers.com.
English clubs splashing the cash
Three of the 10 most expensive signings in the history of football have happened this summer – with all of them being Premier League signings. In fact, this summer window featured four of the top flight’s five most expensive ever deals.
Fernandez was the headline move, surpassing the £116m Manchester City spent earlier in the window to sign Nottingham Forest midfielder Elliot Anderson, while Chelsea paid £117m to sign Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa.
Meanwhile, Liverpool paid an initial £106m, which could rise to £123m, for Paris St-Germain and France forward Bradley Barcola.
Yan Diomande’s move to Real Madrid and Anthony Gordon’s switch from Newcastle to Barcelona are the only deals completed so far this summer by clubs outside the Premier League to involve fees in excess of £60m.
Tottenham’s acquisition of Sandro Tonali was a club-record fee which could reach £100m, while the north London club have also spent heavily on Mateus Fernandes (£85m) from West Ham and Savio from Manchester City (£75m potentially rising to £85m).
Other transfers around this range include the £85.6m deal that City struck to bring in Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille, Bruno Guimaraes’ arrival at Arsenal for £75m from Newcastle, and Manchester United landing Cameroon midfielder Carlos Baleba from Brighton for £70m.
So maybe it is not surprising then that in the compilation of the 20 most expensive transfers completed that only six were not to clubs in the English top flight.
Indeed, newly-promoted Ipswich Town have spent more on new signings than the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus and reigning European champions PSG.
Who were the biggest spenders?
Manchester City’s late confirmation of the signing of Fernandez took their summer spending to £458m as new boss Enzo Maresca was well backed as he looks to build his own team after replacing Pep Guardiola.
That is a new Premier League record for a single transfer window, passing Liverpool’s £415m from last summer. While City did spend big, they also made £304m in player sales.
Chelsea were the next biggest spenders as they paid out a total of £349m, although the Blues also sold £382m worth of players to end up with a net profit of £33m.
A record-breaking window for more than half Premier League clubs
Premier League clubs as a whole were willing to dip deep into their pockets this summer, as 11 of the 20 clubs broke their transfer records, six of them on more than one occasion.
Coventry, promoted to the Premier League alongside Ipswich and Hull, have done so four times over.
They signed Aurele Amenda for an initial £15.4m, before that fee was surpassed by £20m for Loum Tchaouna. Goalkeeper Carl Rushworth made his loan move permanent for £22m but Caleb Yirenkyi now holds the club record after he signed for £23.1m.
Aston Villa and Ipswich also broke their respective records more than once, while James Trafford (Leeds), Mamadou Sangare (Brentford), Luka Vuskovic (Brighton) and Liam Delap (Nottingham Forest) were all £40m-plus club-record buys.
Premier League keeping its deals in house
This summer, 35% of deals involving a transfer fee have been from one Premier League club to another, which is an increase from last year, when the figure was 30%.
That then increases to 44% in instances where Premier League clubs have bought players from lower down the English football pyramid.
On top of that, the Premier League net spend remains over £1bn for this window – by far the most in Europe – despite many of the biggest sales this summer coming from the English league too. Bundesliga and Ligue 1 clubs have received more in transfer fees than they have spent.
Aside from French-based duo Barcola and Bouaddi, the majority of major signings made by Premier League clubs this month have been from rival clubs in the same division.
They include England team-mates Rogers and Anderson, while Newcastle sold Tonali to Spurs and Guimaraes to Arsenal.
Manchester United snapped up Baleba from Brighton after a 12-month chase to aid their midfield revamp, while Tottenham’s recruitment of Fernandes and Savio is in the same category.
But why are English clubs buying each other’s players more than ever this summer instead of shopping abroad for the biggest deals?
One reason could be the temptation for players who are proven in the Premier League.
Many of last season’s big-money signings – with a good chunk of them coming from the Bundesliga – failed to meet expectations or justify their transfer fee.
There have also been deals this summer involving the same clubs, possibly with accounting in mind, with Chelsea and Villa selling players to each other.
And there is also a feeling that teams abroad increase the transfer fees they are asking for when English teams – with all their TV riches – show interest in their players.
Tottenham spent the third-highest amount in the summer window with £302m as they hope to avoid another season of struggle and get back to battling at the top end of the table.
Newly-promoted Ipswich spent big in their bid to avoid an immediate return to the Championship with an overall outlay of £171m, outspending Manchester United, who paid out £148m on new signings.
Meanwhile, Hull – also back in the Premier League this season – had a very busy window with a total of 18 new additions, six of them arriving on deadline day.
A record-breaking window for more than half Premier League clubs
Premier League clubs as a whole were willing to dip deep into their pockets this summer, as 11 of the 20 clubs broke their transfer records, six of them on more than one occasion.
Coventry, promoted to the Premier League alongside Ipswich and Hull, have done so four times over.
They signed Aurele Amenda for an initial £15.4m, before that fee was surpassed by £20m for Loum Tchaouna. Goalkeeper Carl Rushworth made his loan move permanent for £22m but Caleb Yirenkyi now holds the club record after he signed for £23.1m.
Aston Villa and Ipswich also broke their respective records more than once, while James Trafford (Leeds), Mamadou Sangare (Brentford), Luka Vuskovic (Brighton) and Liam Delap (Nottingham Forest) were all £40m-plus club-record buys.
Premier League keeping its deals in house
This summer, 35% of deals involving a transfer fee have been from one Premier League club to another, which is an increase from last year, when the figure was 30%.
That then increases to 44% in instances where Premier League clubs have bought players from lower down the English football pyramid.
On top of that, the Premier League net spend remains over £1bn for this window – by far the most in Europe – despite many of the biggest sales this summer coming from the English league too. Bundesliga and Ligue 1 clubs have received more in transfer fees than they have spent.
Aside from French-based duo Barcola and Bouaddi, the majority of major signings made by Premier League clubs this month have been from rival clubs in the same division.
They include England team-mates Rogers and Anderson, while Newcastle sold Tonali to Spurs and Guimaraes to Arsenal.
Manchester United snapped up Baleba from Brighton after a 12-month chase to aid their midfield revamp, while Tottenham’s recruitment of Fernandes and Savio is in the same category.
But why are English clubs buying each other’s players more than ever this summer instead of shopping abroad for the biggest deals?
One reason could be the temptation for players who are proven in the Premier League.
Many of last season’s big-money signings – with a good chunk of them coming from the Bundesliga – failed to meet expectations or justify their transfer fee.
There have also been deals this summer involving the same clubs, possibly with accounting in mind, with Chelsea and Villa selling players to each other.
And there is also a feeling that teams abroad increase the transfer fees they are asking for when English teams – with all their TV riches – show interest in their players.
Source: BBC