By Sir Hardly Anyone
In the table that follows I’ve taken the teams that are our traditional rivals plus one or two other interesting clubs. Loans are not included and in order to get some sort of coherence I have taken all figures from one source: The Guardian’s transfer tracker.
As you will almost certainly know, many players move for a fee which is not declared in public, and some move for no cost either because the contract has come to an end or the selling club is happy to lose the player.
I have not listed the players moving for no fee, as there are far too many, except in the case of Arsenal where of course we have a particular interest.
Tottenham, who seem to have had a little difficulty in locating anyone willing to take them on, have so far spent nothing.
Although I have seen the usual array of comments about Arsenal being “too slow”, having signed two players we are actually ahead of the game.
| Club | Player in | Cost | Player out | Income | Profit/ (Loss) |
| Arsenal | Lokonga | £17.2m | David Luiz | ||
| Tavares | £6.8m | Mark McGuinness | |||
| Ben Sheaf | |||||
| Zech Medley | |||||
| Trae Coyle | (£24m) | ||||
| Chelsea | Fiyako Tomori | £30m | |||
| Victor Moses | £4.3m | ||||
| Olivier Giroud | £1.7m | ||||
| Marc Guéhi | £18m | +£54m | |||
| Leicester C | Patson Daka | £23m | |||
| Boubakary Soumaré | £17m | (£40m) | |||
| Liverpool | Ibrahima Konaté | £36m | Kamil Grabara | £3m | |
| Marko Grujic | £10.5 | (£22.50) | |||
| Man C | Kayky | £8.6m | Angeliño | £16.4m | |
| Darío Sarmiento | £5.2m | Jack Harrison | £11m | £24.6m | |
| Man U | Jadon Sancho | £73m | (£73m) | ||
| Tottenham H | Juan Foyth | £13m | £13m | ||
| West Ham | Craig Dawson | £2m | Felipe Anderson | £3.5m | £1.5m |
I will aim to keep this running through the rest of the window.
It is also possible to track the amount of money spent in each of the major leagues – again with figures gathered by the Guardian – as per the link above.
- Serie A: £260m
- Ligue 1: £285m
- Bundesliga: £368m
- La Liga: £130.8m
- Premier League: £503.7m
In La Liga, Atletico Madrid have spent £30m, Barcelona are actually £22.4m in profit and Real Madrid are £2.7m in profit. I am not sure such figures half way through a window, have been seen before.
As for Italy it will be interesting to see if they carry on the way they have started. AC Milan are £49.7m down, and Juventus are £15.9m down.
So as we can see the Premier League are hoovering up the players with clubs seemingly unaffected by the pandemic.
It is therefore also interesting to compare with last year (obviously remembering that the figures for earlier years are for the whole of the summer window. We’ve still got a way to go).
| Summer | League | Transfer Total | Percentage of Premier League |
| 2020 | Premier | £1.47bn | |
| Serie A | £774.6m | 53% | |
| League 1 | £665.5m | 42% | |
| Bundesliga | £542.2m | 37% | |
| La Liga | £728.9 | 50% | |
| 2021 thus far | Premier | £503.7m | |
| Serie A | £260m | 52% | |
| League 1 | £285m | 57% | |
| Bundesliga | £368m | 73% | |
| La Liga | £130.8m | 20% |
Of course we are only half way through the window, but we can see the comparative fall out of the pandemic here. La Liga is right down on its expenditure – and of course although it might catch up, at the moment the financial disaster zone that is Barcelona is affecting the whole transfer window in Spain.
Germany has a reputation for managing its financial affairs, and so seemingly have been able to move ahead of the game and pick up the bargain players. Italy is interesting as they are running at the same percentage of the Premier League as last year at the moment.
If we are going to see a window similar to previous summer windows, despite the pandemic soaking up so much of the clubs’ reserves, then we are only one third of the way through the Premier League’s spending spree.
That suggests there is quite a way to go.
The Glorious 2021 Revolution
- Arsenal only did well after Xmas because the fixtures were much easier
- Why Arsenal absolutely must not “allow the players to play”
- How Arteta gave us a hint of what he was about to do, but we missed it.
- For the last two thirds of last season, Arsenal were a top two club
- The audacious tactical change that sent Arsenal charging up the league table
- Figures from Football Observatory at the end of the season showing Arsenal players dominating the statistics.
I think you will find that we received money for all of those sales. In addition we have received loan fees for guendozi, mavropanos and saliba.