Arsenal are mildly obsessed with signing Chelsea cast-offs but they are not alone in spending more of their money at Stamford Bridge than anywhere else.
Arsenal handing over yet more money for a Chelsea player and the Blues themselves heading back to Brighton this summer for a signing got us thinking: who is each Premier League team’s preferred club to make signings from? Whose players have they spent the most money on over the years? Well…
Arsenal – Chelsea (£153m)
It is perhaps slightly strange that Mikel Arteta has built his entire Premier League title charge around the signing of players from a club they haven’t finished lower than in three seasons but the man has a type and is not ashamed of it.
Lille were once the main benefactors of Arsenal’s riches but Noni Madueke has pushed Chelsea past the French side and will hope to be more Jorginho than Willian.
Aston Villa – Everton (£86m)
The path from Goodison to Villa Park was well-trodden in the 1980s as Derek Mountfield, Warren Aspinall, Andy Gray and Steve McMahon all shuffled down from one of English football’s emerging forces to what was a fading giant.
That was that for Villa signings from Everton until Steven Gerrard insisted upon Lucas Digne in 2022. A couple of years later he was joined by Amadou Onana and friend of PSR, Lewis Dobbin.
Bournemouth – Chelsea (£52m)
The Cherries have taken a couple of keepers from Stamford Bridge and would like to think that Djordje Petrovic will fare better than Asmir Begovic, who served his purpose for a few years.
Then there was Nathan Ake, on whom Bournemouth turned a tidy profit after making him their club-record signing in 2017.
Brentford – Liverpool (£70.5m)
Few clubs have ever been quite as happy to pay that Liverpool tax.
Brighton – Leeds (£40m)
The Seagulls borrowed a fair few Leeds players during their Football League years, including Bradley Johnson and Billy Paynter. But the £40m handed over for Georginio Rutter remains a club-record signing.
Burnley – Manchester City (£25m)
There are worse trade links to establish but there is a sense that Burnley could exploit it more: that £25m is entirely made up of transfer fees for goalkeepers.
With that said, a healthy profit should be turned on James Trafford soon, while Ben Mee as a free agent was worth infinitely more than the combined efforts of Joe Hart and Aro Muric.
Chelsea – Brighton (£240m)
The £212m Chelsea have given Leicester over the years trying to replicate the magic of N’Golo Kante’s move has finally been surpassed.
But in usurping Leicester’s place as official Really Well-Run Premier League Club Below The Elite, Brighton have had to embrace taking regular phone calls from Stamford Bridge.
In total, Chelsea have paid close to £300m to poach Brighton’s manager, assistant manager, two first-team coaches, goalkeeping coach, head of recruitment, head of recruitment’s replacement, assistant head of recruitment, goalkeeper, right-back, midfielder and forward.
Pedro completes the cool dozen to have swapped the Amex for West London over the last three years. Todd Boehly could have saved himself the bother and bought the Seagulls in the first place.
Crystal Palace – Liverpool (£55m)
Before Brentford and Bournemouth there was Crystal Palace, who were seemingly intoxicated by the mere thought of being privileged enough to sit across from Liverpool at the negotiating table.
The Reds took full advantage, extracting from Selhurst Park two of the biggest fees the south London club has ever paid for a player.
Christian Benteke finished with a respectable enough record for the Eagles but proved that transfer records should never be broken on a Liverpool player, while Mamadou Sakho probably wasn’t worth £26m.
Everton – Barcelona (£71.4m)
It might go against the accepted wisdom but generally speaking it is far better to buy more frequently and lavishly from clubs down the food chain. The key is usually to poach the best talent from below rather than picking up the dregs from above.
If Real Madrid or Barcelona are willing to sell a player it should raise a few red flags in the collective minds of a recruitment team otherwise stupefied by the idea of brushing shoulders with the elite.
There were no such discerning voices speaking loudly enough when Marco Silva and Marcel Brands started to open doors which should have been left locked. It worked with Gerard Deulofeu, but less so with Digne, Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes.
Fulham – Everton (£37m)
On the other hand, looking up in an alphabetical Premier League table and deciding to source signings from there seems quick but inadvisable.
It has landed Fulham a lovely Alex Iwobi, a delightful Andy Johnson and John Collins among a handful of others over the years, with only Arsenal, Southampton, Spurs and Chelsea ever selling to the Cottagers more often.
Leeds – Red Bull Salzburg (£51.3m)
Jesse Marsch will be made to answer for his crimes one day.
Liverpool – Southampton (£178m)
Who knew the one-month loan of Paul Jones would trigger an obsession which would eventually help crown Liverpool as European and Premier League champions?
Liverpool have not returned to St Mary’s since having their wrists slapped over an illegal approach for Virgil van Dijk in January 2018, although that might be more down to Southampton’s general plight rather than a fear of punitive action.
Manchester City – Aston Villa (£148m)
The Jack Grealish money obviously does a fair amount of heavy lifting but none of James Milner, Gareth Barry or Fabian Delph came cheap either.
Darius Vassell did and was the best of the lot.
Manchester United – Ajax (£187.8m)
Erik ten Hag will be made to answer for his crimes one day. And he might call Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to the stand as a key witness considering Donny van de Beek was arguably as disastrous a signing as Antony.
Neither of them could hold an Amsterdam-based candle to Jesper Olsen. And even Lisandro Martinez is too perennially injured to be an actual butcher.
Newcastle – Nottingham Forest (£85m)
The Anthony Elanga signing has helped Forest surpass Real Sociedad, but without that absolute PSR-take involving Odysseas Vlachodimos none of this would be possible.
Nottingham Forest – Newcastle (£55m)
Elliot Anderson and Chris Wood helped Nottingham Forest transform from relegation candidates to European qualifiers.
Jonjo Shelvey and Daryl Murphy did not.
Sunderland – Spurs (£34m)
The club-record capture of Habib Diarra has pushed Strasbourg into a conversation no-one is actually having, but Spurs will take some shifting from their spot as Sunderland’s preferred dealer.
Darren Bent accounted for almost half of that total once Daniel Levy stopped f**king around, but comfortably this story’s best tale comes from the summer of 2008.
Roy Keane should never have been able to call out Spursiness with a straight face after building Sunderland’s tilt at survival around a good old-fashioned north London raid. He missed out on Younes Kaboul then but Dick Advocaat did no such thing seven years later.
Spurs – Lyon (£78.8m)
Perhaps Spurs will be keeping a closer eye than first thought on the outcome of Lyon’s legal battle against relegation to Ligue 2.
Then again, the buyer’s remorse from taking Tanguy Ndombele and Clinton Njie at great expense might still be pretty strong, and not even enough to counteract the signing of Hugo Lloris.
West Ham – Ajax (£73.4m)
There is no better way to unite Manchester United and West Ham in an alliance of hilarious incompetence than for them to share a favourite outlet.
Neither Mohammed Kudus nor Edson Alvarez have been close to the biggest problem at West Ham in their two years at the club, but until the former is sold for £60m they haven’t come near providing a solution either.
Wolves – Atletico Madrid (£74.6m)
It is a curiously lively, probably Jorge Mendes-laid path from Madrid to Molineux, with Wolves trying before they buy on all three occasions they have purchased permanently from the wares of Diego Simeone.
Jonny Otto played his part for a time, but both Diogo Jota and Matheus Cunha were stunning success stories for the Old Gold.
