More than half of the Premier League’s clubs have set new transfer records in a summer window that has included four of the top flight’s five most expensive deals of all time.
After England internationals Elliot Anderson and Morgan Rogers completed moves worth £116m to Manchester City and £117m to Chelsea respectively, the final two days of the window delivered an even bigger double burst of spending, taking the total beyond last season’s record £3 billion, with the final amount still to be confirmed.
Liverpool first paid an initial £106m for Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola, with the fee potentially rising to £123m. City then followed up the Anderson signing by bringing in another midfielder for a nine-figure sum, former Chelsea player Enzo Fernandez, whose £125m transfer equalled the British record established 12 months earlier by Barcola’s new Liverpool team-mate Alexander Isak.
Sandro Tonali’s transfer from Newcastle to Tottenham could yet become the fifth deal of the summer to cross the £100m mark, with an initial fee of £92.5m. It was the second time Spurs had broken their club transfer record this window, coming soon after the £85m signing of Mateus Fernandes from West Ham.
Spurs have spent heavily this summer, with arrivals including Sandro Tonali.
Savio’s £75m move from City placed him third on Tottenham’s all-time list, and manager Roberto De Zerbi admitted: “The transfer market is crazy” — a comment that summed up the scale of spending across the league.
In total, 11 clubs have broken their transfer records, and six of them have done so more than once.
Coventry have broken their record four separate times, first signing Aurele Amenda for an initial £15.4m. Loum Tchaouna then became the club’s first £20m signing, Carl Rushworth made his loan spell permanent in a £22.5m deal, and Caleb Yirenkyi pushed the record further to £23.1m.
Three clubs broke their transfer records to sign goalkeepers. James Trafford joined Leeds for £40m, while at Hull, Konstantinos Tsolakis’ move — like Rushworth’s — was later surpassed by Nobel Mendy’s £22m arrival.
James Trafford was Leeds’ marquee signing this summer.
Aston Villa and Ipswich were the other clubs to break their respective records twice, while Mamadou Sangare for Brentford, Luka Vuskovic for Brighton and Liam Delap for Nottingham Forest were all club-record signings worth more than £40m.
There have been nine transfers with initial fees of £75m or more, with the list also including City and Arsenal midfielders Ayyoub Bouaddi and Bruno Guimaraes. In addition, Carlos Baleba moved to Manchester United for £65m and Nicolas Jackson joined Aston Villa for the same amount.
On the sales side, Newcastle brought in more than £235m from the departures of Tonali, Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon, while Aston Villa received fees of more than £50m for Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins, on top of Rogers’ move to Chelsea.
