With the January transfer window now temptingly close for those of us who completely lose their marbles when it comes to invented speculation in the redtops, with December now being upon us, here’s a top to bottom list of the most expensive squads in the top flight this season.
Ahead of last weekend’s round of fixtures, Talksport crunched a few quick numbers from the CIES Football Observatory out on the interweb that log reported transfer fees, and looking at (I presume) the 25 man Premier League submitted squads, here are the total transfer spends they came up.
Rank
|
Club
|
Transfer Spend
|
1
|
Manchester United
|
£607.4million
|
2
|
Manchester City
|
£515.9million
|
3
|
Chelsea
|
£406.2million
|
4
|
Arsenal
|
£322.3million
|
5
|
Liverpool
|
£301.5million
|
6
|
Tottenham Hotspur
|
£232.1million
|
7
|
Everton
|
£179.6million
|
8
|
West Ham United
|
£166million
|
9
|
Southampton
|
£154million
|
10
|
Crystal Palace
|
£127.7million
|
11
|
Leicester City
|
£110.1million
|
12
|
Stoke City
|
£101.6million
|
13
|
Sunderland
|
£88.9million
|
14
|
Swansea City
|
£81.3million
|
–
|
Bournemouth
|
£81.3million
|
16
|
Watford
|
£79.5million
|
17
|
Hull City
|
£72.8million
|
18
|
West Bromwich Albion
|
£68.5million
|
19
|
Middlesbrough
|
£52.5million
|
20
|
Burnley
|
£47.5million
|
With the January window soon to be with us, the above figures for many, if not all, will soon change by the time February rolls around and even I find Burnley’s £47.5million outlay mental in the day and age of the countries normal economy – you know for us normal folk with wages and stuff – but £607.4million for Jose Mourinho’s new side, well I must be getting old as it just seems obscene.
But it’s certainly no surprise as Manchester United signed Paul Pogba from Juventus for a new world record £89million over the summer, and the £1billion mark was smashed for the first time in the last window.
Leicester City’s form so far this year, given their summer spending, show that 2015/16 was a refreshing aberration for most football fans, but the logic saying you spend the most, you do the best, clearly there’s a sense behind that when you look at the above table and the real Premier League table at the moment – but it’s by no means guaranteed when it comes to league placing.
I guess when this is run after January’s silly deals, only a few clubs in the spending table will match that with their real league finish.