Deloitte’s sport business group have revealed billion-pound summers are the new norm in the English top flight after a near-record recruitment period.
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Total spending was £1.41billion, only just short of 2017’s record of £1.43bn.
Top deals this summer including Manchester United making Harry Maguire the world’s most expensive defender at £80million, while Arsenal shelled out £72m on winger Nicolas Pepe from Lille.
And over £170m was spent on deadline-day deals, including £40m Alex Iwobi, £30m Ryan Sessegnon and £25m Kieran Tierney.
According to figures from Deloitte, a late deal for Chelsea defender David Luiz pushed Arsenal past Manchester City as the Premier League’s biggest spenders this summer, with Pepe accounting for nearly half of their £155m outlay.
Not bad for a club that was said to only have £40m to spend.
There were also significant moves out of the Premier League, leaving the net spend at a four-year low of £625m.
Romelu Lukaku left Manchester United for Inter Milan on deadline day in a move reportedly worth £73.7m, following Chelsea’s sales of Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata to Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid for combined fees of almost £190m.
Spending was not solely driven by the traditional Champions League-chasing clubs – indeed, Chelsea’s transfer embargo limited them to the signing of the pre-registered Mateo Kovacic while Liverpool made just two low-profile moves for Sepp Van Den Berg and Harvey Elliott.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa followed Fulham last season by spending over £100m as a newly-promoted club and over half of Premier League clubs broke their transfer records.
With three weeks remaining until the deadline elsewhere in Europe, Spain’s LaLiga has already broken the billion-pound barrier with Italy’s Serie A close to the milestone.