By Sir Hardly Anyone
According to data supplied by the Guardian, Arsenal are the top spenders so far in the Premier League having a net spend on £68.7m. The figures take into account the sale of Mattéo Guendouzi to Marseille, Dinos Mavropanos to Suttgard and Daniel Ballard to Sunderland.
This makes Arsenal the biggest net spending club so far this transfer window, and as you may have noticed Arsenal have over 100 more players to sign, at least according to the journalists.
Second in the list of spenders is Newcastle United with a net spend so far of £56m. They are followed by Liverpool who have a net spend so far of £14.3m.
After that it is Manchester United on £2.9m. Chelsea have no transactions with money attached either in or out of the club, while Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur are both showing a profit thus far on their transactions.
Football.London, a notoriously unreliable source of information owned by Reach plc have said that Chelsea are building a “perfect squad” which includes “five signings, three new deals and £206m exits”. Here are the figures for the big seven.
| Club | Player | Cost | Income from sales | Profit / loss |
| Arsenal | Marquinhos | £3m | £14m | £68.7m |
| Matt Turner | £4.7m | |||
| Fábio Vieira | £30m | |||
| Gabriel Jesus | £45m | |||
| Chelsea | Eddie Beach | free | 0 | |
| Liverpool | Darwin Núñez | £64.3m | £59m | £14.3m |
| Fabio Carvalho | £5m | |||
| Calvin Ramsay | £4m | |||
| Manchester City | Erling Haaland | £51.5m | £76m | (£17.5m) |
| Kalvin Phillips | £42m | |||
| Stefan Ortega | Free | |||
| Manchester United | Tyrell Malacia | £12.9m | £10m | £2.9m |
| Newcastle United | Sven Botman | £32m | £1m | £56m |
| Matt Targett | £15m | |||
| Nick Pope | £10m | |||
| Tottenham Hotspur | Richarlison | £50m | £33m | (£17m) |
| Yves Bissouma | £25m | |||
| Fraser Forster | Free | |||
| Ivan Perisic | Free |
The oddity of course is Chelsea with no activity at all, although there is talk that they are about to buy Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly. Stirling is said to be costing £45 million plus up to £20m in add ons, from Manchester City. That would take Manchester City’s transfer profit up to £62m, which raises the question, are they finally coming to terms with financial fair play, or is there a huge transfer about to hit for £100m or more?
FoLo suggest they are after not only Raheem Sterling, but also looking at Richarlison and Ousmane Dembele.
Of course one of the problems with the league these days is that the target is being raised all the time. For example in eight of the last nine seasons, Manchester City have scored 80+ goals. In four of those seasons they have scored 90+ goals.
Compare that with the first ten seasons of this century in which only three times was 80+ goals scored.
However, although the clubs at the top are seemingly getting ever more powerful, to come in fourth less is changing… This table shows the results of the fourth-placed team across the last 10 years.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Arsenal | 38 | 21 | 10 | 7 | 72 | 37 | 35 | 73 |
| 2014 | Arsenal | 38 | 24 | 7 | 7 | 68 | 41 | 27 | 79 |
| 2015 | Manchester United | 38 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 62 | 37 | 25 | 70 |
| 2016 | Manchester City | 38 | 19 | 9 | 10 | 71 | 41 | 30 | 66 |
| 2017 | Liverpool | 38 | 22 | 10 | 6 | 78 | 42 | 36 | 76 |
| 2018 | Liverpool | 38 | 21 | 12 | 5 | 84 | 38 | 46 | 75 |
| 2019 | Tottenham Hotspur | 38 | 23 | 2 | 13 | 67 | 39 | 28 | 71 |
| 2020 | Chelsea | 38 | 20 | 6 | 12 | 69 | 54 | 15 | 66 |
| 2021 | Chelsea | 38 | 19 | 10 | 9 | 58 | 36 | 22 | 67 |
| 2022 | Tottenham Hotspur | 38 | 22 | 5 | 11 | 69 | 40 | 29 | 71 |
Arsenal got 69 points last season, which in two of the last three years would have earned fourth place. Three more points would have got us fourth in each of the last four seasons. We didn’t make it, as we all well know, but we were not that far away as the table shows.
Surely the Guardian have made a mistake as according to the figures above Tottenham’s net spend should be £42 million.
£50m + £25m – £33m = £42m