Total net spend:
Man City – £481.96million
Man Utd – £422.5million
Arsenal – £291.36million
Chelsea – £246.39million
Tottenham – £167.53million
Liverpool – £144.38million
This is Net spending of each clubs since 2017 to 2021, Man united are not far away from oil club for your information, to get a fair comparison.
Think this is slightly misleading though, seeing as City had made significant squad investments prior to this and so obviously required less each season. They pumped the money in at a point where a top prospect set you back 30-50 million, not 70-120.
Big parts of their investment came a few years before prices rocketed. They bought the likes of Silva, Aguero, Silva etc before players of that promise and calibre jumped to much more expensive prices. So they've been sprinkling in several 40-60 million players to supplement the squad rather than having to go and buy a first team player. Buying a Bernard Silva from Monaco to add to your squad is obviously going to cost less than someone such as Pogba, who was bought as an elite player to try and bridge the gap between the clubs.
Also, City buy and sell a LOT of players. Net spend is pretty misleading because they spent windows moving players on who hadn't taken off or they were replacing. These players were bought 2-3 seasons prior and so the incoming fees make the net spend look lower.
If a club like Burnley invested 300 million into their squad and then spent the following 5 years buying more and selling off 2-4 of the players they initially invested in each window then your going to see that net spend figure appear lower.
The real advantage a club like City has is that they can afford to do this. It isn't feasible for most clubs to turn players over this way because it's a gamble. If you look at the amount of arrivals and departures over the last 10 years then City's list is insane. When you buy squad players and then sell them at a loss a few years later, even if it's a loss it still helps balance the net spend.
So buying Otamendi for 40 million and selling him 4 years later for 13 would boost their net spend over the last 3 years but wouldn't account for the outlay of actually buying him. The period you've chosen would be boosted by his sale whilst not being negatively impacted by his purchase
Ok fair but how to we generate our money? Where do we get it from? We’re self sufficient.
I don't care where they get their money really, I don't really begrudge them spending, even if it is a bitter pill to swallow.
These figures are misleading though. Go and look at City's in and outs over the last decade and not only did they get lucky and build their spine before transfer prices shot up - ageuro, silva, even Sterling. Not a chance you're getting those players for even remotely close to what they cost at the time. City were buying players when 30-50 million was the bracket.
They have also bought an absolute shed load of players and moved most on at quite a loss. These net spend figures will include the 13 million they got for Otamendi but conveniently start the year after they paid 40 million for him (or however much they paid, it was somewhere around that).
The net spend figures are helped quite significantly by players like Adebayor being sold on, tons of squad players that didn't present them value for what they paid but when you take a 3 or 4 year snapshot of net spend, their sales over those years, flogging all their dead wood for losses actually reduce their net spend figure and make it appear as though they are marginally ahead in spend.
In 2017 they sold/received a loan fee for 12 players vs United's 3.
In the last 4 years they have spent around 760 million on transfers, if they do end up buying Kane, they will have spent close to a billion since 2017.
In the same period we've spent around 615, so hardly chump change but when you consider that as of 2017, City were already ahead in terms of their squad it's not that difficult to see why we're still behind. If you consider the difference in spending on top of the gap already between the clubs, it's absolutely no surprise to me that we're still behind.
Since Guardiola took over in 2016, City have bought at least 40 players. In the same period, we have brought in 18, not including Varane.
I'm not levelling this at them as a criticism as such - I don't think it's particular healthy in the grand scheme of things but I don't an 'issue' with it. But more just to point out that even if you can get a bit creative with the figures and make it look as though City are on a similar level, they simply aren't. Yes, I know that selling players is part and parcel of the game but the scale at which City will bring in and then sell players, usually at a fair loss, just shows that they can play the game of spin the wheel as many times as it takes. It's a gamble other clubs typically just can't take.
It is what it is but anyone trying to argue its even remotely similar to how United built their success - which was very heavily supported by our academy and didn't involve buying and selling large amounts of players every year, is really clutching at straws.
