The final weeks of the 2023/24 Premier League season looks set to be a real nail biter.
We have a genuine three team title race, with a single point separating Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. Then there’s Aston Villa, looking to shake up the established order with a top four finish.
These four clubs are also in the running to win the European competitions in which they are competing. If Paddy Power’s odds are correct, there could be an English clean sweep of the three continental trophies this season.
Manchester United are threatening to save their season by winning the FA Cup, while down the bottom, Luton are making an unexpectedly good fist of staying up, with Everton and Nottingham Forest struggling on and off the pitch.
We have all this to discuss and pore over, yet huge swathes of coverage fixate on transfers, and the rumour mill never stops even though most transfer business is focused into a few days each year.
One reason transfers are so popular is they are viewed as the solution to any problem a club has. But is there any merit to this idea?
Look at the list of the most expensive transfers in Premier League history…. it’s not dripping in success stories. Chelsea have three entries in the top 10 but you can’t say Romelu Lukaku, Moises Caicedo or Enzo Fernandez have offered much by way of a return at Stamford Bridge, while Man City spent £100m for Jack Grealish to deliver a goal or assist roughly every three games.
Then there’s Man United, whose entries in the top 25 costliest transfers of all time are Jadon Sancho, Lukaku, Harry Maguire, Antony and Paul Pogba. Oh boy!
It got us thinking, what link is there between transfer spend and success? It’s time to dig into the 2023/24 Premier League data.
Methodology
The reporting of transfer fees is notoriously erratic, so we’re using a single source: Transfermarkt. They carry data on each club’s ‘Purchase value,’ as “the total amount of transfer fees which a club invested in within the current squad,” in Euros.
This figure can then be divided by points to give a financial value to what they call ‘transfer effectivity’.
The Good
Luton Town unsurprisingly have the lowest cost per point, and by a considerable margin too. The Hatters’ squad cost €950k for each of the 22 points they have earned, a rate only one fifth of the next team on the list, in Fulham (€4.75m).
This analysis highlights the financial disparity between England and the rest of Europe’s big five leagues. There are six teams with lower costs per point than Luton in La Liga, five in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, and three in Serie A. In each of these countries, Fulham’s rate would be between the fourth and six highest, not second lowest.
The biggest overachievers in the Premier League this season are Brighton, who are eighth in the table despite being ranked 15th for purchase value. Credit also goes to Unai Emery’s Villa, who are fourth, despite being fifth bottom for cost per point.
The Bad
The biggest underachievers, how ever you slice it, are Chelsea. Gary Neville didn’t call them ‘blue billion-pound bottle jobs’ for nothing… he did it for clicks and likes.
But also because they are the only club in the English top flight whose cumulative squad purchase value tops the billion Euro mark! You could add together Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and you’d only need about €25m more to reach the cost it took to assemble the Chelsea squad.
That amount is also coincidentally how much the Blues have spent per point so far this season.
Chelsea’s 2023/24 Premier League spend per point tally this season is a whopping €25m.
United are predictably terrible by this method of assessment too, with Erik ten Hag taking the third costliest squad to sixth in the table for the small matter of €18.36m per point. If they’d got the results their underlying performances have deserved, the Red Devils would be at Chelsea’s level of wastefulness. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has a lot to sort out!
While not as costly, Everton and Forest make up the worst four teams for the gap between cost rank and league position, with both currently five places below where they should be based on purchase value. It’s the Big Six Cartel’s fault though, obviously.
The Best and the Worst
In the middle of the Premier League’s cost per point standings are four clubs who range between €9.4m and €11m, but where this has taken them to, is a good place to wrap up.
The teams with those two above rates are Sheffield United and Burnley respectively, both of whom look nailed on for an immediate return to the Championship. In between them in the rankings are Liverpool (€10.45m) and Arsenal (€10.62m), sides who could yet win the Premier League, a European trophy, or maybe both.
Just as size isn’t everything, or so they tell me, transfer spend is not purely about volume. It’s about spending the money wisely on players who fit into the side and add to it. There are other factors which influence success, not least the wage bill, but it’s clear a big transfer spend alone is not a shortcut to success.
Not that this knowledge will stop several teams trying this summer. Just ignore transfers, it’ll only encourage them.
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