No sign of Liverpool or Manchester City in top 10 net spenders since 2020

Why 2020? Because this is the Covid era when transfer spending was supposed to be curbed. And five transfer windows is enough time to give us a pattern. And the pattern is that Liverpool and Manchester City are excellently run.

Headline: Eight out of 10 of the biggest spenders are in the Premier League. Wow.

All the numbers are from transfermarkt.

10) West Ham United (net spend since 2020: £121.05m)

Biggest signing: Nayef Aguerd and Kurt Zouma (£31.5m)

Biggest sale: Sebastien Haller (£20.25m)

They have basically sold nobody of note over the last two summers, which is nice for squad continuity but not so brilliant in terms of raising funds for that new striker they desperately need.

9) Aston Villa (net spend since 2020: £121.41m)

Biggest signing: Emiliano Buendia (£34.6m)

Biggest sale: Jack Grealish (£105m)

To have a net spend bigger than either Liverpool or Manchester City while selling one player for a British record fee is nothing short of extraordinary. Eleven signings of £10m or more really do add up to a rather large spend.

8) Bayern Munich (net spend since 2020: £142.74m)

Biggest signing: Matthijs de Ligt (£60m)

Biggest sale: Robert Lewandowski (£40.5m)

Some serious comings and goings to and from Munich this summer, with Lewandowski finally being granted his wish to leave just as De Ligt was arriving to presumably win about seven Bundesliga titles.

7) Leeds United (net spend since 2020: £148.13m)

Biggest signing:  Brenden Aaronson (£29.56m)

Biggest sale: Kalvin Phillips (£52.2m)

They finally sold a player. Then they sold another. Which is reason in itself to applaud Leeds, whose fans must now get behind Jesse Marsch.

6) Paris Saint-Germain (net spend since 2020: £187.47m)

Biggest signing: Achraf Hakimi