Chelsea and Man City make moves as EPL spending hurtles toward $3 billion in window
LONDON: English Premier League spending was hurtling toward a staggering $3 billion in a record outlay during European soccer’s summer transfer window on Friday. Manchester City and — of course — Chelsea were among those making moves on a typically frantic deadline day. Chelsea were leading the unprecedented splurge, with the arrival of 21-year-old winger Cole Palmer from City for 40 million pounds ($50.7 million) taking the west London club’s spending in this window to around $500 million. In the three transfer windows under their new American ownership fronted by Todd Boehly, Chelsea have spent about $1.15 billion on players mostly signed up on long contracts in an innovative way to spread “amortization” costs of transfer fees. By comparison, the $260 million outlay by City, the English and European champion, look modest. The fourth and final arrival in the window came on deadline day and was Portugal international Matheus Nunes from Wolverhampton, a ball-carrier costing $67 million and providing extra depth in central midfield. Central midfielders were also priorities for Liverpool and Manchester United, who were attempting to tie up the signings of Ryan Gravenberch from Bayern Munich and Sofyan Amrabat from Fiorentina, respectively, in the final hours of the window. It was a busy day for United, which signed left back Sergio Reguilón on loan from Tottenham as cover for the injured Luke Shaw and goalkeeper Altay Bayindir on a transfer from Fenerbahce to back up Andre Onana.
