The English clubs that have spent the most on their current crop of players.
Here are the 10 most expensive squads in England currently, with statistics from the Football Observatory.
9=. Southampton – £67m
Despite only being in their second term back in the top flight, Saints demonstrated their financial muscle in the summer by signing Pablo Osvaldo, Dejan Lovren and Victor Wanyama. They are no longer in any danger of relegation and currently sit ninth in the Premier League.
9=. Aston Villa – £67m
Alongside the South Coast club is – somewhat surprisingly – Villa, who have still have club-record signing Darren Bent on their books despite the £24m man being on-loan at Fulham. Christian Benteke has proved a cracking investment at £7m.
8. Everton – £68m
The Toffees have been on the thriftiest clubs in the Premier League but David Moyes and now his predecessor Roberto Martinez has spent wisely and built up a good squad over a number of years. Kevin Mirallas and James McCarthy have been great additions.
7. Newcastle United – £69m
Just edging ahead of this bunch of English sides is the Magpies, who’s French revolution under manager Alan Pardew has been funded by the huge sums received for Andy Carroll and Yohan Cabaye.
6. Liverpool – £175m
Big jump up now to the Merseyside outfit, who quickly put Kenny Dalglish’s costly mistakes of Carroll and Stewart Downing behind them. The Scot did spend £20m on Jordan Henderson and £22.8m for Luis Suarez, which is looking like great business.
5. Arsenal – £178m
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is famously reluctant to spend big in the transfer market but the £42.4m the clubs spent on Mesut Ozil this summer takes them into the top 5 and they could climb even higher if they shell out a similar fee for Julian Draxler this month.
4. Tottenham Hotspur – £206m
A splurge of spending last summer following the £85.3m sale of Gareth Bale has seen Spurs shoot up this list with Paulinho (£17m), Roberto Soldado (£26m) and Erik Lamela (£30m) all being purchased for club-record fees. None of Spurs’ seven summer signings have been that great, though.
3. Chelsea – £310m
Next up are the big-spending Blues, who have been dishing out billionaire owner Roman Abramovich’s cash since 2003 – current expensive assets include Eden Hazard, Fernando Torres and Willian.
2. Manchester United – £325m
Yet despite the west Londoners having the reputation of buying the league title it is in fact the 13-time Premier League winners United that are second on the list, with big buys such as Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney helping propel them above Chelsea.
1. Manchester City – £358m
Another huge jump now to the Red Devils’ fierce rivals City, who since being bought by Sheikh Mansour in 2008 have purchased Sergio Aguero for £38m and Fernandinho for £30m and have just one homegrown player in Micah Richards.
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