Arsenal are the New Stoke (according to an article in Talk Sport)
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By Tony Attwood
Last season was interesting in the way that the clubs we’ve regularly designated as the Big 7 (or put another way the Big Six that many speak of plus Newcastle United on the grounds that they had Arabic investment) ended in positions between one and eight in the Premier League. The sole interloper was Aston Villa, another club with big inward investment. Here’s the final table in case you’ve forgotten.
So on that basis it looks as if money talks. Throw money at a club and it will rise up. Except maybe not. Certainly, Tottenham tried it last season in a summer which 90 Min summarised as at time as being a period in which “The clear-out and rebuild has continued in regards to outgoings, with further deadwood shifted”.
In the summer over £120.5m was spent by Tottenham Ho on Lucas Bervall, Archie Gray, George Feney, Dominic Solanke and Wilson Odobert. And I say “over” £120.5m because the fee for George Feeney was not disclosed because at the time the player was 16. Most likely if he makes it at Tottenham or Tottenham sell him on for a fee, the disclosure will follow.
Actually, six of the ten biggest-spending clubs in Europe this summer according to Football 365 are Premier League clubs. But – and this is the big point – not all of them have really benefitted from being big net spenders.
West Ham United for example were the tenth biggest spenders in Europe this summer spending £121.6m, with Max Kilman the most expensive. But having come ninth last season they are now 14th.
Above West Ham in the spending lark were the mighty Tottenham Hots who spent £125.4 including a lot on Dominic Solanke.
Aston Villa have shown a huge desire to be a permanent part of the Top Four, and they were the fifth highest spenders (and again this is measured across the whole of Europe so the table includes Barcelona, Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid etc). Villa spent £148.4 to get them into fourth place in the spending league and to help them survive in the Champions League. So they signed Ian Maatsen.
Manchester United of course really knew their ambition and what they were going to do about it and so were the third biggest spenders in Europe (and I should add for veracity all the figures were taken from Transfermarkt.
Utterly amazingly to me if not to anyone else, the second biggest spenders were Brighton and Hove who let go £194.7m. And despite Matt O’Riley being injured in his first match, they seem to be making good.
Top of the list of course was Chelsea, and we would expect nothing else. Quite how their spending of £219.9m this summer works in terms of Financial Fair Play I have no idea but they are steaming ahead, although they seem to have gone over to the idea of not having a striker.
As Football 365 said in their review “We are not too sure what the bloody hell they’re playing at” and in a different article announced Joao Felix is the most laughable of all Chelsea signings
According to Transfermarkt, Premier League clubs’ net spend in total this summer was around £629.8 million which was 40% down on 2023. But even so a lot of money was spent.
So in the past we have argued that while some transfers can and obviously do work, by and large the whole transfer thing is a myth – spending shedloads of money is not only not a guarantee of success, often it brings the opposite. So here is a table of the Big 7, showing not just the normal data but the net spend of players last summer.
Net £m
1
2
3
4
10
12
13
So pretty firm evidence that tbig money spent in the summer often does not bring success the following season. It might bring success in later years – but even that is most certainly not certain. Tottenham Ho for example turn out to be the fourth-highest spending club over the past four years and it still hasn’t worked.
And isn’t that the classic definition of madness? Doing something, finding it doesn’t work and then doing it over and over and over again?
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Arsenal are the New Stoke (according to an article in Talk Sport)
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