Premier League Clubs Set New January Deadline Day Spending Record
Premier League clubs were collectively responsible for setting a new January deadline day spending record this week, with £150m going on new players in the final 24 hours of the window alone to surpass the previous high of £135m set in 2011.
Overall, Premier League spending across the whole month of January this year hit £430m, another new record that is almost double the existing mark of £225m, also from 2011.
Figured quoted from analysis by Deloitte's Sports Business Group, published by BBC Sport.
Back in January 2011, unseen levels of spending on deadline day accounted for much of the whole month's total sum. It included around £110m on deals for just Fernando Torres, Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, all three of which represented new club records for Chelsea and Liverpool (twice) respectively.
After 2011, things considerably calmed down in the winter window. The following season in 2012 it was less than £100m for the whole month, while even steady rises year on year since still only saw spending scrape above £200m last January. Deadline spending last year was just £60m.
In fact, 2017 winter spending was so relatively low, that the collective net sum actually yielded a small profit.
But the brakes came off in spectacular fashion in 2018, with Liverpool registering the £75m signing of Virgil van Dijk on the very first day of the window. That was a huge new club record for the Reds, while Manchester City spent a club record £57m on Aymeric Laporte, with Arsenal also setting a record of their own with £56m Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Aubameyang contributed to the huge deadline day spend, accounting for over 33% of it. The collective £150m was also made up of Tottenham's capture of Lucas Moura from Paris Saint-Germain, Olivier Giroud heading to Chelsea and Stoke's deal for Badou Ndiaye, among others.
2018 spending, both on deadline day and as whole, would have been far higher still had Leicester been willing to sell Riyad Mahrez to Manchester City - the offers got as high as £65m in what would have been a second club record for the City in as many days.
With more money than ever before flowing into the Premier League, don't expect a lull in January 2019 as happened in 2012...
