Brentford £1.26m

Brighton £1.34m

Crystal Palace £1.58

Fulham £1.72m

Leicester City £1.75m

Manchester City £2.64m

Aston Villa £3.11m

Arsenal £3.13m

Liverpool £3.18m

Everton £3.29m

Bournemouth £3.43m

Tottenham £3.72m

Newcastle United £3.98m

Manchester United £4.45m

Nottingham Forest £6.28m

Leeds United £6.68m

Wolverhampton Wanderers £6.74

Southampton £7.11m

West Ham United £8.5m

Chelsea £17.39m

 

Points averaged across 23 games.

 

Teams have sold players too and Manchester City ( it is no secret why!), Brighton, Everton and Leicester City actually make a net profit on transfers and Liverpool and Leeds United got decent income from selling players, albeit not as much as they spent. However, it is not easy for EPL clubs to sell at a profit, it is only basically to other EPL teams and, for my stating the obvious comment of the day, you can only sell a player once! If you don't replace with value and/or potential, without a bottomless money supply, the well can quickly run dry! 

 

Liverpool are looking for new owners or third party investment, depending on which story you believe, but easy to see why, they have spent so little on their midfield and defence in recent years that now the cupboard looks bare and it is going to take major financial outlay to make them a real team again. As I said yesterday, good teams don't defend like they do and they have been ripped apart by Brentford, Brighton, Wolves and now Real Madrid in 2023 and we are less than eight weeks into the New Year.

 

Chelsea appear to have one of those bottomless money pits, at least for the time being and have come up with creative ways to exploit FFP rules, but the five teams immediately above them in the spend table might have serious issues if their outlay doesn't bring with it, EPL survival. 

 

Burnley had largely spent their EPL income frugally for many years, but new (2021) owners ALK Capital funded the takeover with the clubs' own money, in a deal similar to the Glazers' leveraged buyout of Manchester United and the Clarets went very quickly from debt free to owing some £112m. There was also a clause in the loan that said £65m of that money had to be repaid upon relegation and after that happened last season , sales of McNeil, Cornet, Collins and Pope helped enable that and £32.3m was returned to private equity firm MSD immediately last summer in three payments. Had they not been relegated, that debt would not have become due until 2026 , would doubtless have sat on the books until then and might have been added to. Given the Clarets current position, top of the Championship with a 16 point lead over the team in 3rd , with a very win-able FA Cup 5th round tie next week and a young energetic squad, playing under a high profile and much admired new head coach in Vincent Kompany, we can argue that relegation and the debt reduction, was a blessing in disguise. However, things could have turned out very differently and there is no knowing what financial decisions the owners will make going forward, once promotion is secured.

 

Southampton were sold to Sport Republic 13 months ago, at the time, they had on their books a very high interest (9.1%) loan from that same company (MSD) of £78.8m, repayable in 2025. This was in place before the takeover and NOT linked to the sale, but if it has not subsequently been repaid (it was still on the latest set of accounts), it is a very big millstone around the neck of a club that had previously traded well, but has seen losses season on season since 2019. They spent very heavily this season, are at the foot of the EPL, have a caretaker manager in charge as I type, after both Ralph Hasenhuttl and Nathan Jones were sacked from the role in the last three months (!), with large compensation payments due. Jones was only in charge for 14 games and had a 3.5 year contract! It doesn't sound great , especially as Saints were held up as a blueprint of how to run a small/mid sized club for many years, but that only highlights how quickly financial circumstances can change, even in the Promised Land of the EPL.

 

Good luck!