They have two of the richest football owners in the world, so it should not be a surprise that Manchester City and Chelsea were once again the big spenders in the summer transfer market.
Manchester City spent well over 120 million euros last summer, and for the second year in a row, the club was the biggest spender, albeit only a comparitively modest 92.2 million euros this time around. Almost half of that expenditure was dedicated to one player int he form of Sergio Aguero. City also snapped up Samir Nasri, Stefan Savic and Gael Glichy, while Owen Hargreaves arrived on a free transfer on Deadline Day.
Europe’s big five leagues, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League and Serie A, spent over 1.6 billion euros this summer on players. It is no surprise that the Premier League easily outdistanced all the other leagues.
| FIVE BIGGEST SPENDERS – LEAGUES |
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| 1. Premier League | €521.95m | ||
| 2. Serie A | €460.73m | ||
| 3. La Liga | €344.81m | ||
| 4. Ligue 1 | €188.50m | ||
| 5. Bundesliga | €153.64m | ||
| *source: Transfermarkt | |||
Manchester City spent well over 120 million euros last summer, and for the second year in a row, the club was the biggest spender, albeit only a comparitively modest 92.2 million euros this time around. Almost half of that expenditure was dedicated to one player in the form of Sergio Aguero. City also spent big for Samir Nasri, Stefan Savic and Gael Glichy.
The second biggest spender was Chelsea. After a quiet summer last year by Roman Abramovich’s standards, the Blues brought in the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata, Lucas Piazon, Thibaut Curtoius, Oriol Romeu and the deadline signing of Raul Meireles and Abramovich tries to make his aging squad younger and more athletic.
Defending champion Manchester United needed a replacement for Edwin van der Sar, and the club splashed out 20 million euros to sign David de Gea. Ashley Young and Phil Jones were the other key acquisitions.
Liverpool’s American owner John Henry got his first taste of football’s summer transfer window and didn’t shy away from spending as the Merseysiders spent 65.2 million euros to bring in Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam, Sebastian Coates and Jose Enrique.
And then of course there’s Arsenal. The club suffered the shock loss of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri and things just went from bad to worse on the pitch. But last-minute deals saw it sign Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker, Andre Santos, Park Chi-Young, and Yossi Benayoun on loan to join Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gervinho, the other new arrivals.
Elsewhere, Newcastle United brought in Yoann Cabaya and David Santon, Sunderland strengthened with Connor Wickham, John O’Shea and Wes Brown, Fulham pulled off a deal to sign Bryan Ruiz and John Arne Riise, while Tottenham only had Brad Friedel, Emmanuel Adebayor and Scott Parker to show for its summer efforts.
