Friday 17 April 2020 09:06, UK
Premier League clubs spent £1.194bn during this summer's transfer window to smash the £1bn mark for the first time.
The total includes an estimate of £18.87m for some of the more expensive undisclosed fees, estimated by transfermarkt.co.uk.
Manchester City led the way, splashing £174.05m on John Stones (£50m), Leroy Sane (£37m), Gabriel Jesus (£27m), Ilkay Gundogan (£21m), Claudio Bravo (£17.1m), Nolito (£13.8m), Marlos Moreno (£4.75m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£3.4m).
Meanwhile, neighbours Manchester United were the league's next big spenders, with Jose Mourinho investing £149.55m on world-record signing Paul Pogba (£93.25m), Eric Bailly (£30m) and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (£26.3m).
In the last summer window, Arsenal only spent £10m on Petr Cech - but Arsene Wenger reversed his frugal spending approach this term, spending £91.1m on Shkodran Mustafi (£35m), Granit Xhaka (£34m), Lucas Perez (£17.1m), Rob Holding (£2m) and an estimated fee of £3.4m for Takuma Asano during this window.
Sunderland became the 13th Premier League club to set a new spending high for a single player after signing Gabon international midfielder Didier Ndong from French side Lorient for £13.6m.
Promoted Burnley broke their record for the second time in this window when they signed Republic of Ireland international Jeff Hendrick from Derby County for a fee of £10.5m.
According to analysis by Deloitte's Sports Business Group, Premier League spending surpassed the other top divisions in Europe, with Serie A clubs spending £590m, the Bundesliga £460m, La Liga with £400m and Ligue 1 with £165m.
Gross spending in the Sky Bet Championship also broke the previous record, with £215m being spent across England's second-tier clubs.
Liverpool recouped a league-high £84.4m from offloading 11 players for fees, including Christian Benteke (£32m), Jordon Ibe (£15m), Joe Allen (£13m), Luis Alberto (£6m), Brad Smith (£6m) and Martin Skrtel (£5m).
Southampton (£64m), Everton (£50m), Crystal Palace (£46m), Leicester (£43.31m, including £1.96m estimated), Swansea (£41.9m) and Tottenham (£40.72m, including £5m estimated) also cashed in during the window.
Only four Premier League clubs made a net profit from transfers: Southampton (-£20.2m), Liverpool (-£14.5m), Swansea (-£9.63m, including a £5m estimate) and Everton (-£1.05m, including £850k estimated).
The Manchester clubs were the biggest net spenders, led by City with +£169.05m and United on +£141.05m, followed by Chelsea (+£97.65m, including £4.25m estimated), Arsenal (+£88.1m, including £5.87m estimated) and north London rivals Tottenham (+£29.88m, including £5m estimated).
*Figures below include estimated substantial undisclosed fees
