Analysing the Premier League’s 2024 summer transfer window (2024)

The business came late and it came in a chaotic flurry. The final hours of the summer transfer window for once justified the hype as 20 players were signed by Premier League clubs. A desperate late grasp for financial balance meant plenty more were moved out, too.

Manuel Ugarte, Jadon Sancho, Raheem Sterling, Aaron Ramsdale, Eddie Nketiah and James Ward-Prowse were among the high-profile names to find fresh challenges on deadline day, with English football’s biggest clubs among those still casting their nets at sunset to heighten Friday’s drama.

Yet the summer’s last knockings were not quite in keeping with all that had gone before. This was a subdued window by the Premier League’s opulent standards, with a collective spend that was 16 per cent down on its record-breaking equivalent of 2023. The final outlay of £1.98billion ($2.6bn) was broadly in line with that of summer 2022 albeit reliant on the self-serving business orchestrated around the June 30 deadline in getting that far.

Chelsea and Manchester United did their bit, together committing close to £400million to signing new players, but several leading rivals preferred to sit on their hands. Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal were among those not to take their spending into nine figures.

To call it a summer of austerity would be a stretch when the three promoted clubs — Ipswich Town, Southampton and Leicester City — felt emboldened enough to spend close to £300million in remodelling their squads, but plenty within the Premier League were reintroduced to restraint.

Six clubs recouped more than they spent in fees and, according to figures from the respected data website Transfermarkt, six more had a net spend below £32million. Of the 17 clubs who were insulated by the Premier League’s vast TV money in 2023-24, 13 had a lower net spend this summer compared to last. In real terms, with expenditure offset by income, the 20 clubs parted with £490m less than they did in 2023.

Some of the group tightening the purse strings included those sailing close to the PSR (profit and sustainability rules) wind, such as Newcastle United and Everton, but there were others largely content with their lot. City, Arsenal and Liverpool, the top three in last season’s final Premier League table, could almost count their combined major signings on one hand. Champions City, in fact, were outspent by Birmingham City of League One, English football’s third tier — only committing funds to land Savinho from multi-club stable partners Troyes.

That approach restricted liquidity in the market, with Dominic Solanke’s £65million move from Bournemouth to Tottenham Hotspur eventually left to stand as the biggest deal struck in the Premier League. There was nothing like Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo, two midfielders transferred within the top flight for more than £100million each last summer, to move the needle this time.

Those two latter deals, though, did at least bring ripples to the market 12 months on. Brighton & Hove Albion, whose sale of Caicedo helped them make an £85million profit in the market last summer, had the biggest net spend of any club in the world in this window after writing cheques totalling almost £200m during it.

West Ham United, who cashed in on Rice 12 months ago, were seventh on that same international list with a net spend of £83million. Ipswich, who have parted with over £100m in a bid to be competitive this season after 22 years away in the EFL, were an unlikely face in the clubs ranked between the two, alongside Manchester United, Napoli, Lyon, and Paris Saint-Germain.

Chelsea again committed to the biggest overall outlay (for the third time in four transfer windows during the Todd Boehly-Clearlake ownership era) but spending was offset by sales totalling £147million. No club in the world generated that level of income this summer, although Leeds United, beaten by Southampton in the Championship play-off final in May, ran them close with a clear-out which yielded £137m. Manchester United and Tottenham both ended the summer with a greater net spend than Chelsea, despite their £219m outlay.

The thorny issue of PSR served to both inflate and deflate the summer market at different points. Although Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea were forced to rein in their lavish spending of recent years, they were among the handful of Premier League clubs artificially injecting cash into the transfer ecosystem while Euro 2024 was still in full flow in June and early July.

A sudden rush of deals were concocted to help those three, as well as Everton, Aston Villa and Leicester, all attempt to meet PSR requirements ahead of the June 30 annual accounting deadline. Those six clubs struck agreements to raise a combined £323million through the sale of 15 players during the final 10 days of June, bringing the market to life in what is a traditionally slow period of the summer.

That eventually accounted for 16 per cent of the Premier League’s final spend but some never came out the other side of their PSR troubles. Newcastle, once the nouveau riche armed with Saudi money, only went on to sign Sheffield United youngster William Osula after that frantic point of the window.

Perhaps the most obvious pattern from the summer was the demographic of signings made. Premier League clubs completed 37 transfers worth more than £20million, and 31 of those were for players aged 24 or under.

Only five players aged 30 or over, meanwhile, commanded a transfer fee. West Ham’s signing of 31-year-old forward Niclas Fullkrug from Borussia Dortmund for £27million was a clear outlier in a window where several of the biggest clubs, including Manchester United, Spurs and Chelsea, focused unapologetically upon bringing the average age of their squads down.

Of the ‘Big Six’, in fact, only City were willing to sign a player in his thirties, bringing German midfielder Ilkay Gundogan back from Barcelona on a free transfer a year after he moved in the opposite direction after his contract at the Etihad Stadium expired. Ageing players seldom now feature in recruitment plans of the game’s elite.

That, in turn, has created problems. Senior players on high wages proved harder to shift this summer, leaving some clubs with financial liabilities they would prefer to have moved on. There has not been a market for the likes of Ben Chilwell, 28 in December and persona non grata at Chelsea, or 33-year-old Kieran Trippier, who was eager to leave Newcastle. Casemiro, a veteran Manchester United were willing to part with at 32, was another to attract minimal interest and no takers on his enormous salary.

The Saudi Pro League was offering lots of remedies to the headaches of Premier League clubs last summer but those spending habits have changed markedly within 12 months.

Although Brentford were eventually given the windfall that no English club was willing to stump up when agreeing to sell Ivan Toney to Al Ahli for £40million and Villa previously eased their PSR concerns with the sale of Moussa Diaby to their Jeddah neighbours Al Ittihad for £54m, the Saudi approach has been more circ*mspect this summer.

Just £250million has been spent by the Saudi league’s clubs ahead of its transfer deadline tomorrow (Monday) — roughly a third of what the same division handed over during a transformational recruitment drive this time last year.

And if not Saudi, where? The inflated wages of the Premier League are not often matched in continental Europe, especially with the financial challenges faced by some of the biggest hitters there. Barcelona and Bayern Munich, to name two, have been more intent on trimming wages in the past month.

The Premier League, all the while, continues to stand unrivalled for its financial might.

Twelve of the biggest spending 20 clubs worldwide were from England, with the Premier League’s overall outlay more than all the Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga teams paid out combined. Ipswich, who were playing League One football as recently as April 2022, committed twice as much on transfer fees as Bayer Leverkusen, last season’s German double winners and Europa League finalists.

That is not to say continental clubs have been completely left behind. Atletico Madrid’s signing of Julian Alvarez from Manchester City for a fee potentially rising to £82million was the window’s biggest, while Paris Saint-Germain’s capture of Joao Neves from Benfica for around £50m illustrated their enduring ambitions.

Greatest of all in stature, though, was Real Madrid’s signing of Kylian Mbappe. A “free” agent in name, if not reality, the France international forward pointed towards some of Europe’s biggest clubs being now prepared to hunt long-term bargains.

The Premier League still cannot get all the names it might wish for, but another summer window has illustrated that, even with cuts to spending, it continues to boast the deepest, most enviable reserves.

Do not expect that to change any time soon.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)