Pep Guardiola presses the panic button in the January transfer window.
After the worst run of his management career – which included five defeats in a row before he collapsed against Feyenoord – he punished no less than £ 182 million to save the Manchester City season.
City began to land their New Year's expenses through Estate-back Abdukodir Khusanov for £ 33.6 million.
The first Uzbeek player of the Premier League was followed by colleague defender Vital Reis to Etihad for £ 29.6 million.
Guardiola then strengthened his attack with the largest signing of the January transfer window in England and dropped £ 64 million on Omar Marmoush of Eintracht Frankfurt.
Juma Bah joined £ 5.1 million and then City ensured that they insured the four largest deals of the month by picking up £ 50m Spanish midfielder Nico Gonzalez on the Deadline day.
Together with Savinho as their most important new acquisition in the summer for £ 21 million, City spent more than £ 200 million this season on players.
But they also earned £ 159 million in sales.
More than half of it came from the exit from Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid, while Joao Canneo went to Saudi Arabia and again the money that was raised by a large number of graduates from the academy.
But the expenditure of £ 201 million of City and £ 42 million net spending were both exceeded much by Buren Manchester United.
The most important signing of Ruben Amorim in January was the £ 29 million that Patrick Dorgu fell on the left side – which adds to the £ 200m that spent in the summer on Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte.
With only £ 86 million increased in departure, the net spending of 2024-25 was £ 143 million.
And that was the largest of the 'Big Six' this season – that is why their 'lead' expanded as the general largest net spending between the elite English clubs since 2016, when Pep Guardiola arrived.
1. Man utd – £ 1 billion
Since 2016, Manchester United has spent a stunning £ 1.37 billion on new players.
Paul Pogbas £ 89 million arrival that year remains the club record, although Antony (£ 85.5 million), Harry Maguire (£ 85 million), Romelu Lukaku (£ 75 million), Jadon Sancho (£ 73m) and Rasmus Hojlund (£ 72m ) All arrived in massive deals.
Their biggest signing this season was Leny Yoro for a maximum of £ 52 million.
The record sales of United will remain Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £ 80 million in 2009, so the highest fee received in the period since 2016 is the £ 73 million they received from Inter Milan in 2019 for Romelu Lukaku.
Ironically, the money for Mason Greenwood (£ 26.6 million) and Scott McTominay (£ 25 million) in the summer are among the largest united sale of all time.
In the period of 2016, United sold £ 371 million to players – the lowest in the 'Big Six' – to take their total net expenditure up to exactly £ 1 billion.
2. Chelsea – £ 836 million
The crazy editions of Chelsea went to even more Bonkers levels since Todd Boehly took over in 2022.
But in the last nine seasons it is hardly any credible at all: a stunning £ 1.97 billion.
This season's £ 54 million deal for Pedro Neto does not even get the top ten on their list – behind Wesley Fofana (£ 75 million), Kai Havertz (£ 70 million) and that man Lukaku again (£ 97.5 million).
Chelsea is the only English team that has spent £ 100 million -plus on two different transfers – the £ 106 million for Enzo Fernandez and £ 100 million, possibly rising to £ 115 million, for Moises Caicedo.
But although Chelsea are the largest Prem -spending, they are also the largest Prem Sellers, who achieve £ 1.13 billion in player outputs – including £ 88 million (Eden Hazard to Real Madrid), £ 65 million (Havertz to Arsenal) and £ 60 million (Mason Mount to United) – because their net releases come out as £ 836 million.
That was helped by raising big money for Ian Maatsen (£ 37.5 million), Lewis Hall (£ 28 million), Conor Gallagher (£ 36 million) and Lukaku (£ 25.2 million) this period.
3. Man City – £ 695 million
We have already discussed the editions of the city this season, but how does that play in the general statue in the Guardiola era?
In total, the Etihad Giants are second for expenditure at £ 1.46 billion.
The arrival of Marmoush is fourth in their all time, just behind Ruben Dias and then a way out of Josko Gvardiol (£ 77 million) and record signature Jack Grealish that cost £ 100 million.
As with Chelsea, however, City receives some hefty prizes for selling a wave of young people who are good enough for many teams, but simply not entirely at the required elite level of Guardiola.
The Alvarez deal could rise to £ 81.5 million, while the money for Taylor Harwood-Bellis (£ 20m), Liam Delap (£ 15 million), Sergio Gomez (£ 8.4 million) and Tommy Doyle (£ 4 , 3 million) racks.
After Alvarez, the other largest sale of City in the period Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres, Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane and Cole Palmer (all between £ 47.5 million and £ 40 million).
And the total number is a net expenditure of £ 695 million with Guardiola in the Dugout.
4. Arsenal – £ 688 million
The net outputs of the city are only £ 7 million or more than those of Arsenal in the same period -but they have six more Premier League titles, four more competition cups, an extra Champions League and an extra club world to show, And the same number of FA Cups.
The total of Arsenal is £ 688 million in red – including approximately £ 23 million this season spent by around £ 100 million and received £ 77 million.
David Raya (£ 27 million), Riccardo Calafiori (£ 42 million) and Mikel Merino (£ 31 million) were the most important arrivals, but Emile Smith Rowe (£ 27 million), Aaron Ramsdale (£ 18m) and Eddie Nketiah (£ 25 million) all left.
Arsenal has not been afraid to spend great, and splashes £ 60 million on Pierre-emerick Aubameyang and £ 72 million on Nicolas Pepe before the more recent arrivals of £ 65 million Kai Havertz and £ 105m Declan Rice.
The Smith Rowe Deal is their fifth largest sales ever – and Nketiah Ninth – while Alex Oxlade -Chamlain the stack at the top £ 35 million to Liverpool at the top of 2017 at the top of Liverpool.
5. Tottenham – £ 580 million
Tottenham is just shy for the £ 1 billion expenditure since 2016 – at £ 995 million.
That includes £ 145 million this season on the record arrival Dominic Solanke (£ 65 million), £ 40 million on Archie Gray, £ 25 million on Wilson Odobert and £ 12.5 million on goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky who arrived in January.
Other major expenditures were Richarlison (£ 50 million), Dejan Kulusevski (£ 25 million), James Maddison (£ 40 million), Pedro Porro (£ 37.3 million), Micky van de Ven (£ 35 million) and Brennan Johnson ( £ 47.5 million).
As far as their turnover is concerned, they have a total of £ 415 million in the time frame – the Great is Harry Kane who leaves for Bayern Munich at the start of last season for a first £ 86 million.
The move from Kyle Walker to Manchester City in 2017 was worth around £ 50 million, but the biggest turnover this season was Oliver Skipp to Leicester (£ 20 million), Emerson Royal to Milan (£ 12.8 million) and Joe Rodon to Leeds (£ 10 million).
And that all means that tracks have fallen £ 580 million since 2016 at transfer costs.
6. Liverpool – £ 282 million
Perhaps it is no surprise to see Liverpool with the best net spending on the 'Big Six' on only £ 282 million in the last nine seasons.
In fact, the Reds actually made a profit in the 2024-25 campaign by only buying Federico Chiesa for £ 10 million and £ 50 million in the sale of Fabio Carvalho (£ 20 million), Sepp van den Berg (£ 20m) and Bobby Clark (£ 10 million).
The continued a wise – and successful – transfer strategy that Liverpool has seen selling great and then waiting to find the right players at the right time for the right price.
In the era of before 2016 that is not included in these figures, Liverpool Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres and Raheem Sterling sold.
Subsequently, in 2018 they insured an eye -falling £ 145 million from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho, so that they made more than a quarter of their turnover of £ 505 million during the fixed period.
Liverpool has also not been afraid to splash the money – a total of £ 787 million since 2016 – with a total of £ 85.3 million deal for Darwin Nunez in 2022 their record signed for Virgil van Dijk (£ 75 million), Alisson (£ 67 million), Dominik Szoboszlai (£ 60 million) and Nby Keita (£ 53 million).
Interestingly, the Net £ 282 million from Liverpool since 2016 have been considerably less than West Ham (£ 451 million) and Newcastle (£ 396 million) and only £ 8 million more than Aston Villa after they Jaden Philogenic (£ 20 million ), Diego Carlos (£ 8.5m) had sold and Jhon Duran (£ 64 million) in January.
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