Premier League clubs have spent more than £4.4bn on players since the transfer window was introduced 10 years ago with this summer’s spending set to match last year’s figure of more than £450m.
Roman Abramovich’s billions have made Chelsea the Premier League’s biggest spenders over the past decade with £681m going on transfer fees.
Manchester City (£572m) and Liverpool (£414m) occupy second and third place, according to research conducted by Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.
Going into the final week of this summer’s window, spending is on a par with this time last year with some £350m spent by Premier League clubs since the end of the season.
“Over the last 10 years, Premier League clubs have invested over £4bn in transfer fees to bring the best playing talent to the league,” Dan Jones, a partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said.
“Testament to their success is the strength of the league and its commercial appeal, shown by the recently announced broadcast deal. With spending this summer set to be at a similar level to that of 2011, significant investment in playing talent, both in terms of player transfer fees as well as wages, looks set to continue in both the January and summer transfer windows.”
Once again, Chelsea look set to lead the way this summer having spent more than £75m on Eden Hazard (£32m), Oscar (£25m), Victor Moses (£9m) and Cesar Azpilicueta (£7m). Manager Roberto Di Matteo remains in the market for a striker.
But none of Arsenal (Santi Carzola £16m, Olivier Giroud £10m, Lukas Podolski £11m), Manchester City (Jack Rodwell £15m), Manchester United (Robin Van Persie £24m and Shinji Kagawa £12m), or Liverpool (Fabio Borini £11m, Joe Allen £15m, Oussama Assaidi £3m) have come close to matching the £50m plus each club spent last summer.
There is, however, still time for that to change. Last summer Premier League clubs spent more than £100m on deadline day itself, with £135m being spent on the final day of the January transfer window in 2011.
City, Chelsea and Tottenham remain the likeliest to spend big over the final days of this window.
Champions City remain determined to bring in a world-class midfielder and an attacking player, while Spurs, bolstered by the £33m sale of Luka Modric to Real Madrid, are also keen to sign another striker with Frenchman Loic Remy and Shaktar’s Willian among the possible targets.