Ranking every Premier League club by their squad cost in 2024-25
Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City’s squads have all exceeded the €1billion mark when it comes to total combined transfer fees, according to industry estimates.
The CIES Football Observatory have published a full list of the 100 most expensively assembled squads in world football, with the Premier League unsurprisingly dominating.
The top five clubs are English, while all 20 top-flight clubs unsurprisingly feature in there somewhere – with even mid-ranking sides like Nottingham Forest, Wolves and West Ham outspending major European powerhouses.
Taking a look at the Premier League alone, there’s a clear and distinct top three.
Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Manchester City can probably be considered to be getting bang for their buck, racking up the trophies after their free-spending approach to the transfer market in recent years.
But Manchester United and Chelsea, who finished eighth and sixth respectively last season, will be desperate to get back into the Champions League after investing heavily in players.
Some way behind that top three are North London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham, who have each spent just short of €800million on Mikel Arteta and Angel Postecoglou’s squads.
Spurs finished fifth last season, so arguably performing to about par, but while they’ve spent a considerable sum, Arsenal could be viewed as overachieving to challenge for the title.
Liverpool sit sixth in the table, having spent over half a billion less to build Ange Postecoglou’s squad transfers than Chelsea have on theirs.
At the other end of the squad cost table, Everton’s squad is second-bottom, with Sean Dyche’s squad amounting to less than newly-promoted sides Leicester City and Southampton.
Brentford are also down there, alongside Fulham, offering a reminder of what good jobs Thomas Frank and Marco Silva are doing in West London.
Ipswich Town are a long way off at the foot of the table, having spent over €100million fewer on their squad than any other side.
The majority of their €166million squad cost was spent on Kieran McKenna’s squad this summer, underlining quite what an achievement it was to get promoted from the Championship last term.
In fact, even after their Premier League cash injection, their squad still costs less than Leeds United’s, who they pipped to automatic promoted last term.
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Here’s the full breakdown. We’ve included the figures including transfer add-ons, but you can find squad cost estimates at CIES.
1. Chelsea – €1.26billion
2. Manchester United – €1.038billion
3. Manchester City – €1.017billion
4. Arsenal – €798million
5. Tottenham – €787million
6. Liverpool – €735million
7. Newcastle United – €683million
8. Aston Villa – €475million
9. Brighton – €433million
10. Wolves – €426million
11. West Ham – €414million
12. Nottingham Forest – €398million
13. Bournemouth – €364million
14. Leicester City – €317million
15. Crystal Palace – €311million
16. Southampton – €308million
17. Brentford – €306million
18. Fulham – €293million
19. Everton – €291million
20. Ipswich – €166million