By David Owen
February 2 – Next season’s new surge of broadcast income for Premier League clubs appeared to exert a heavy influence on another lacklustre January transfer window, with clubs in the relegation or promotion scraps in the top two tiers of English football accounting for a high proportion of expenditure.
According to information compiled by Deloitte, the professional services firm with a long track record of monitoring the sector, clubs currently in the premiership’s bottom six accounted for more than half of the league’s £175 million total spend in January. Moreover, clubs in the top six of the Championship accounted for 70% of the £35 million in gross transfer spending by those in English football’s second tier.
The reluctance to spend by those whose Premier League status in 2016-17 looks secure means that 2011 – the year of the giant Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres transfers into and out of Liverpool – remains comfortably the record January transfer window in England, with £225 million of spending by Premier League clubs.
In many ways, the most eye-catching of last month’s deals was the £20-25 million sale by Chelsea of Brazilian midfielder Ramires to the Chinese FA Cup holders Jiangsu Suning – a transfer whose direction of travel looks very much like a harbinger of things to come.
According to Deloitte, Newcastle United – who imported Jonjo Shelvey from fellow strugglers Swansea and Andros Townsend from Tottenham – Norwich City and Watford were the Premier League’s biggest gross spenders in the latest January window.
With the top clubs mainly doing their business last summer, the January total did carry full season spending by Premier League outfits beyond £1 billion for the first time in 2015-16, with the final aggregate reaching £1.045 billion, against £965 million in 2014-15.
In what might be termed the Dele Alli factor, Premier League clubs also spent twice as much on players from the lower divisions of English football as in either of the last two January windows, with the arrival of the likes of Demarai Gray at Leicester City and Sam Byram at West Ham.
In the brief period since his arrival at Tottenham from Milton Keynes Dons, Alli, an elegant midfielder, has repeatedly caught the eye as well as fighting his way into the full England line-up.
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