PEP GUARDIOLA hit the panic button in the January transfer window. After the worst run of his managerial career - which included five defeats in a row before collapsing against Feyenoord - he sanctioned a whopping £182million outlay to try and rescue Manchester City's season. City started off their New Year spending spree by landing centre-back Abdukodir Khusanov for £33.6m. The Premier League’s first Uzbek player was followed to the Etihad by fellow defender Vitor Reis for £29.6m.

Guardiola then bolstered his attack with the biggest signing of the January transfer window in England, dropping £64m on Omar Marmoush from Eintracht Frankfurt. Juma Bah joined for £5.1m and then City ensured they secured the four biggest deals of the month by snapping up £50m Spanish midfielder Nico Gonzalez on deadline day. Together with Savinho as their main new acquisition back in the summer for £21m, City spent more than £200m on players this season.

But they also made £159m in sales. More than half of that came from Julian Alvarez’s exit to Atletico Madrid while Joao Cancelo headed to Saudi Arabia and once again the cash added up by letting a host of academy graduates go. But City’s £201m expenditure and £42m net spend were both far exceeded by neighbours Manchester United. CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS. Ruben Amorim’s main signing in January was the £29m dropped on left-back Patrick Dorgu - adding to the £200m spent in the summer on the likes of Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte.

With only £86m raised in departures, the 2024-25 net spend was £143m. And that was the biggest of the ‘Big Six’ this season - therefore extending their ‘lead’ as the overall biggest net spenders among the elite English clubs since 2016, when Pep Guardiola arrived. Since 2016, Manchester United have spent a staggering £1.37billion on new players. Paul Pogba’s £89m arrival that year remains the club record, although Antony (£85.5m), Harry Maguire (£85m), Romelu Lukaku (£75m), Jadon Sancho (£73m) and Rasmus Hojlund (£72m) all arrived in massive deals.

Their biggest signing this season was Leny Yoro for up to £52m. United’s record sale remains Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80m in 2009 so the highest fee received in the period since 2016 is the £73m they got from Inter Milan for Romelu Lukaku in 2019. Ironically, the money banked for Mason Greenwood (£26.6m) and Scott McTominay (£25m) in the summer are among the biggest United sales of all time.

Across the period from 2016, United have sold £371m worth of players - the lowest in the ‘Big Six’ - to take their overall net spend to just about exactly £1bn. Chelsea’s crazy spending has gone to even more bonkers levels since Todd Boehly took over in 2022. But in the last nine seasons, the total is barely believable: a staggering £1.97bn. This season’s £54m deal for Pedro Neto does not even make the top ten on their list - behind the likes of Wesley Fofana (£75m), Kai Havertz (£70m) and that man Lukaku again (£97.5m).

Chelsea are the only English team to have spent £100m-plus on two different transfers - the £106m for Enzo Fernandez and £100m, possibly rising to £115m, for Moises Caicedo. But while Chelsea are the biggest Prem spenders, they are also the biggest Prem sellers, racking up £1.13bn in player exits - including £88m (Eden Hazard to Real Madrid), £65m (Havertz to Arsenal) and £60m (Mason Mount to United) - as their net spend works out as £836m.

That was helped by fetching big money for Ian Maatsen (£37.5m), Lewis Hall (£28m), Conor Gallagher (£36m) and Lukaku (£25.2m) this term. We’ve already discussed City’s spending this season but how does that play into the overall picture in the Guardiola era?. In total, the Etihad giants are second for outlays on £1.46bn. Marmoush’s arrival is fourth in their all-time list, just behind Ruben Dias and then a way off Josko Gvardiol (£77m) and record-signing Jack Grealish who cost £100m.

As with Chelsea, though, City fetch some hefty prices for selling off a wave of youngsters good enough for many teams but just not quite at Guardiola’s required elite level. The Alvarez deal could rise to £81.5m while the money for Taylor Harwood-Bellis (£20m), Liam Delap (£15m), Sergio Gomez (£8.4m) and Tommy Doyle (£4.3m) racks up. After Alvarez, City’s other biggest sales in the period are Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres, Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane and Cole Palmer (all between £47.5m and £40m).

And the total tally is a net spend of £695m with Guardiola in the dugout. City’s net spend is just £7m or so more than Arsenal’s over the same period - but they have six more Premier League titles, four more League Cups, an extra Champions League and an extra Club World Cup to show for it, and the same number of FA Cups. Arsenal’s total is £688m in the red - including approximately £23m this season with approximately £100m spent and £77m received.