How Premier League spending compares with 50 days of window left

With 50 days to go until the Premier League transfer window closes, clubs have spent more money on transfers at this stage of a summer than ever before.

Data from Transfermarkt shows that Premier League clubs have spent £1.03bn on players since the transfer window first opened at the start of June.

The highest figure, by this stage, had been the £800m spent in the summer of 2022.

“We noted a very obvious dip in spending after Covid but it would seem as though most Premier League clubs have overcome those difficulties and are now back to spending money with very little concern,” said Transfermarkt’s UK area manager Stefan Bienkowski.

It is less than halfway to the record though, the £2.36bn paid by Premier League clubs in the summer of 2023.

This has been an unusual transfer window… in that there have been two windows.

The first opened between Sunday, 1 June and Tuesday, 10 June, because of an exceptional registration period relating to the Fifa Club World Cup.

Every club within the 20 national associations competing in the United States could sign players as it was not only restricted only teams in the tournament – in the Premier League’s case, Chelsea and Manchester City.

It then reopened on Monday, 16 June and will close again on Monday, 1 September.

Fifa’s 16-week limit on the length of transfer windows meant associations could not allow a recruitment period to run continuously through the summer if they wanted to end at the same time as other leagues who did not have representatives at the tournament.

But it meant plenty of big spending in the first 10 days of June, which has undoubtedly been a major factor to pushing collective spending beyond £1bn.

A total of £400m was spent before the traditional transfer window even opened.

Manchester City paid about £108m to sign Rayan Cherki, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Tijjani Reijnders.

Chelsea spent £60m on Liam Delap, Mamadou Sarr and Dario Essugo before the tournament and another £60m on Joao Pedro before the quarter-final.

There have been nine Premier League transfers so far this summer for an initial fee of £40m or more.

The biggest one by far is the £100m up front Liverpool paid Bayer Leverkusen for Germany midfielder Florian Wirtz.

That is the joint second biggest British signing ever – and would break the record if the Reds ended up paying all the £17m add-ons.

The second biggest signing this summer was the one first made as Manchester United bought £62.5m Wolves striker Matheus Cunha on 1 June.

Arsenal’s signing of Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi, Joao Pedro swapping Brighton for Chelsea, Tottenham bringing in West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus and Newcastle’s recruitment of Nottingham Forest’s Anthony Elanga have all been in the £50m-60m region.

The other £40m+ moves are Chelsea’s buying Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund, Reijnders joining City from AC Milan and Liverpool’s purchase of Bournemouth’s Milos Kerkez.

Elanga’s transfer to Newcastle on Friday night was the sixth in the Premier League for a fee of £55m or more during the current window.

The two biggest spenders this summer have been Chelsea and Liverpool, including those deals put in place last year.

Chelsea have spent a combined £211m on Essugo, Delap, Sarr, Joao Pedro, Gittens, Estevao Willian and Kendry Paez – according to Transfermarkt.

Liverpool have shelled out £185m on Wirtz, Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong and Giorgi Mamardashvili.

Tottenham (£122m), Manchester City (£113m) and promoted Sunderland (£100m) are the other clubs in nine figures – including loans made permanent.

Sunderland’s five biggest signings ever have come this summer – headlined by £30m Habib Diarra from Strasbourg and £21m Simon Adingra from Brighton.

Fulham are the only Premier League club yet to sign a player this summer, but four players have left including Carlos Vinicius and Willian.

Crystal Palace have only spent £2m – on Ajax defender Borna Sosa. Goalkeeper Walter Benitez joined on a free from PSV.

Neither of West Ham’s two signings are new players for the first time.

They are Jean-Clair Todibo, whose loan move from Nice was automatically made permanent because they avoided relegation, and teenager Daniel Cummings, who is joining their under-21 squad.

As always, Premier League clubs are spending more than their foreign counterparts.

English top-flight clubs have exceeded the transfer investments of Serie A, Bundesliga and La Liga teams combined.

Only five teams in the world outside of England have bought a player as expensive as Sunderland’s £30m Diarra this summer.

Real Madrid spent £50m on Bournemouth defender Dean Huijsen and £38.5m on River Plate midfielder Franco Mastantuono, and Atletico Madrid around £38m to bring in Alex Baena from Villarreal.

The amount of Premier League to Premier League transfers so far is fairly similar to recent years.

It currently sits as 17% of Premier League signings this summer. Last season, including the winter and the summer, the total was 20%.