Premier League clubs have broken their all-time summer transfer record after spending reached £3.46bn.
English top flight clubs had already pushed well beyond the £3bn barrier when Iliman Ndiaye’s move from Everton to Manchester City on deadline day for an initial £60m took the amount spent past the previous mark of £3.14bn from 12 months ago.
Enzo Fernandez’s move from Chelsea to Manchester City for a joint-British transfer record fee of £125m was then confirmed shortly after the transfer window closed.
A total of £475m was spent on deadline day itself, up from £391m last year.
The total amount spent during the window considerably dwarfs the £1.13bn spent by clubs just five years ago and underlines the power top English clubs have to attract talent, according to figures provided to BBC Sport by Paul Macdonald, founder of FootballTransfers.com.
English clubs splashing the cash
Three of the 10 most expensive signings in the history of football have happened this summer – with all of them being Premier League signings. In fact, this summer window featured four of the top flight’s five most expensive ever deals.
Fernandez was the headline move, surpassing the £116m Manchester City spent earlier in the window to sign Nottingham Forest midfielder Elliot Anderson, while Chelsea paid £117m to sign Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa.
Meanwhile, Liverpool paid an initial £106m, which could rise to £123m, for Paris St-Germain and France forward Bradley Barcola.
Yan Diomande’s move to Real Madrid and Anthony Gordon’s switch from Newcastle to Barcelona are the only deals completed so far this summer by clubs outside the Premier League to involve fees in excess of £60m.
Tottenham‘s acquisition of Sandro Tonali was a club-record fee which could reach £100m, while the north London club have also spent heavily on Mateus Fernandes (£85m) from West Ham and Savio from Manchester City (£75m potentially rising to £85m).
Other transfers around this range include the £85.6m deal that City struck to bring in Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille, Bruno Guimaraes’ arrival at Arsenal for £75m from Newcastle, and Manchester United landing Cameroon midfielder Carlos Baleba from Brighton for £70m.
So maybe it is not surprising then that in the compilation of the 20 most expensive transfers completed that only six were not to clubs in the English top flight.
Indeed, newly-promoted Ipswich Town have spent more on new signings than the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus and reigning European champions PSG.
BBC
