Always further, always more expensive. The English clubs have further panicked the summer transfer window, led by the reigning champion, Liverpool. The Reds, who obviously did not intend to rest on their laurels, dropped not far from 500 million euros this summer. It is even more than the 400 million invested in 2017 by PSG, to afford Neymar and Kylian MbappĂ©. The biggest “dinguerie” of all time.
Liverpool started by making Florian Wirtz the most expensive player in the history of the Premier League, at 125 million euros. Then after laying 95 million euros on the table for Hugo Ekitike, the Mersey club offered itself a final madness during the “Deadline Day”, with a new record transfer for English football: 145 million for Alexander Isak.
At the time, PSG had made a few teeth cringe at the time of its coup to Neymar and Mbappé. Competitors did not appreciate seeing this club-state spend so much money, at a loss almost. PSG failed the market, could be heard. These criticisms are less present this year to Liverpool, and there is a reason for this.
Liverpool and PSG, it's not the same
In 2017, and if we take into account the 180 million of the transfer of Mbappé (which was effective in 2018), PSG spent more than the other 17 Ligue 1 clubs together. The imbalance with the competition was spectacular. This is absolutely not the case for Liverpool, which is only a mega-riche among others in England.
Thus, nine of the ten most spending clubs in summer are English, the intruder being Leverkusen … who was able to spend money from Liverpool for Wirtz. Thus, in anonymity (or almost), Nottingham Forest spent 236 million euros. The promoted Sunderland, inflated by TV rights, offered itself a recruitment at 188 million euros.
There are also two ways to “defend” the Liverpool transfer window. The first is to take into account the trade balance. Liverpool, who also sold this summer (Nunez, Luis Diaz, Quansah), finally invested less than Arsenal, who spent nearly 300 million euros by recovering only 10 million euros. In parallel, it should be remembered that the Reds had recruited very little in recent years.
Since the start of the 2023-2024 season, Chelsea, PSG and the two Manchester have spent more than the Mersey club, counting this record transfer window. So there was money in the boxes, and there are still some. The proof? Liverpool wanted (also) to offer Marc GuĂ©hi on the last day, for around fifty million euros, but Crystal Palace refused. Otherwise, the check was ready …
