Why Premier League transfer window spending has declined

There are many arguments to be made in favour or against the Premier League’s financial rules, and your view might well depend on which team you support. What cannot be denied, though, is that clubs are now taking these rules seriously.

‌If last season was the first in which the profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) really started to bite, then this summer has demonstrated the impact they are now having on clubs. There is caution in the air, across the league, and the transfer market has moved significantly slower as a result.

‌Reduced spending in England

‌Last summer, according to data from football information website Transfermarkt, the 20 Premier League clubs spent a combined total of £2.34 billion on new signings. This summer, there has been a dramatic decline in that spending. As of the deadline passing on Friday night, a total of £1.98 billion had been spent.

‌The big-money deals of last year have simply not materialised this time around. Indeed, the most expensive transfer to a Premier League team in the 2024 summer window was Dominic Solanke’s £65 million move from Bournemouth to Tottenham Hotspur.

‌In the transfer window of 2023, by contrast, there were two deals worth more than £100 million (Declan Rice to Arsenal and Moises Caicedo to Chelsea), and four deals worth more than £60 million.

‌Last summer, 13 players moved to a Premier League club for a fee of more than £50 million. This summer, with clubs keen to balance the books, there have been just four.

‌Spain and Italy begin to close the spending gap

‌As the Premier League market has shrunk, the opposite has taken place in Spain and Italy. In Serie A, total transfer spending rose from £765 million last season to £844 million this year. In Spain, it jumped from £374 million to £468 million.

‌Indeed, the biggest deal of the summer involving a Premier League club was actually a sale, rather than a purchase: Julian Alvarez moved from Manchester City to Atletico Madrid in a deal worth up to £81.5 million. Another big-money move from the Premier League to Spain was Conor Gallagher’s £34 million switch from Chelsea to Atletico.

In Italy, too, they have plucked Premier League talent. Napoli paid a combined fee of almost £70 million to sign Romelu Lukaku, Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour, from Chelsea, Manchester United and Brighton respectively.

Perhaps as a consequence of the reduced spending in the Premier League, there was not such growth in the French and German markets. Germany’s spending dipped from £640 million last year to £503 million this year, while Ligue 1’s spending fell from £768 million to £602 million.

‌Good sales are just as important as good buys

‌For many clubs, 2024 has been the summer of selling. Even the top teams, such as Arsenal and Manchester City, have put as much focus on generating transfer fees as they have spending them. Arsenal’s net spend this summer was less than £5 million, in large part because of the sales of Emile Smith Rowe (£34 million to Fulham), Eddie Nketiah (£30 million to Crystal Palace) and Aaron Ramsdale (£25 million to Southampton).

‌City, meanwhile, were among the clubs who made a profit. It was not a small profit, either: on player trading this summer, they made more than £100 million. Much of this came from the sale of Alvarez to Atletico. Other clubs to finish the window in profit were Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton and Wolves.

Smaller market provides a big opportunity

‌For those clubs with the ability to spend – in other words, those clubs without PSR concerns – the shrunken market represented an opportunity. There was less competition for players, and therefore better value for money to be found.

‌Brighton were the most obvious beneficiaries of this. Having made an enormous profit over the last three seasons, they chose this summer to invest heavily in the first-team squad. Overall, they spent almost £200 million, with a net spend of almost £150 million – the highest in the division.

‌West Ham were also big spenders, with £130 million invested on new players. Last year’s sale of Rice to Arsenal clearly helped their cause. Spurs also spent big, investing around £140 million, the year after selling Harry Kane to Bayern Munich.

‌For those clubs who had sold well in the past, and planned well in recent months, this became a window in which deals could be done for reasonable prices. There is a lesson there to the rest of the division, and especially to those who had failed to balance their books in previous windows.