Man City v Chelsea – How much have the Premier League heavyweights spent in the last 10 years?

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Total fees revealed 

©TM/IMAGO

Manchester City will be hoping to once again dust themselves off and get back to winning ways on Saturday, as they look to put a 4-2 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League behind them with a vital win over Chelsea in the Premier League. Pep Guardiola’s side have now lost no less than nine games in all competitions this season after initially taking the lead, which undoubtedly underlines their inability to put together any decent run of form. However, beating Enzo Maresca’s fourth-placed Chelsea would not only allow Man City to leapfrog their opponents in the league table, but also regain some much needed morale in the dressing room. 

While this fixture may not be billed as a clash between two hopeful title challengers, it is unquestionably a heavy-weight bout when it comes to the financial might of the Premier League. Both clubs can not only lay claim to squads that cost more than €1 billion in transfer fees to assemble, with Man City’s squad costing €1.1b and Chelsea’s costing €1.13b, but both have also unquestionably reached the very heights of English football through raw, unrivalled spending power in the transfer window. And when we take a look back through the last 10 years of transfer activity in English football, we can see just how much these two clubs stand out among their domestic rivals when it comes to flashing the cash. 

Rather remarkably, when it comes to the biggest signings in Premier League history, both Chelsea and Man City can lay claim to no less than 10 players. Man City have four signings in the top 20 – Jack Grealish (€117.5 million move from Aston Villa), Josko Gvardiol (€90m from RB Leipzig), Kevin de Bruyne (€76m from Wolfsburg) and recent January window signing Omar Marmoush (€75m from Eintracht Frankfurt). Naturally, that then leaves six Chelsea signings in the top 20 – Kepa Arrizabalaga (€80m from Athletic), Kai Havertz (€80m from Bayer Leverkusen), Wesley Fofana (€80.4m from Leicester City), Romelu Lukaku (€113m from Inter), Moisés Caicedo (€116m from Brighton) and the current record transfer signing for any Premier League club in Enzo Fernández, who joined from Benfica for €121m. In fact, the two clubs have tussled for the glory of laying claim to the Premier League record, with Chelsea breaking it in 2011 with the €58.5m signing of Fernando Torres, before Man City then beat it with the aforementioned signing of De Bruyne in 2015. Guardiola’s side then increased that record when they signed Grealish in 2021, only for Chelsea to then steal top spot again when Fernández swapped Lisbon for London in 2023. 

This, unquestionably, underlines the financial power of the two clubs and how the Premier League’s other giants have struggled to keep up with them. Which can perhaps be laid bare when we take a look at the full extent of their spending in the transfer window over the course of the last 10 seasons. As the video above highlights, the top 10 list begins with Everton in tenth place with a total spend of €853m, followed by Newcastle (€924m), Aston Villa (€990m),  West Ham (€1.04b) and  Liverpool (€1.12b). When we get to the top five, we find Tottenham in fifth place with a spending bill of €1.25b, just behind Arsenal in fourth place on €1.33b. There’s then a notable jump to third place, where Manchester United have a total spend of €1.76b. Then, remarkably, cross-city rivals Man City sit in second place having spent €1.96b on players in the last 10 years. However, even that number seems relatively small in comparison to first-placed Chelsea, who have spent a truly remarkable €2.48b on signing new players over the course of the last 10 seasons. Not only is that €522m more than Man City’s spending in that period of time, but it’s also more than Liverpool and Tottenham’s combined spending too.