The new Premier League campaign is not far off now, and the ongoing transfer window is strange for Manchester City fans. The Blues faithful are used to seeing their club fork out mega money to secure deals for the planet’s best players.
However, this year, Pep Guardiola has signed just one player thus far, Brazilian prospect Savinho from City Group-owned Troyes. That deal represented a relatively modest £20m outlay for the club, leaving them as the third lowest spending club in the division this term.
Fans won’t be too worried, however. Last season, the Blues claimed their fourth straight Premier League title, becoming the first team in history to achieve such a feat. They managed to hold off Arsenal’s brave challenge to become champions again on the campaign’s final day. Despite their lack of signings, the bookies still fancy City to reign supreme this term, with the latest odds from Bovada making them the 6/5 frontrunners.
But with the club spending such little money this summer, that got us thinking, where has the Etihad outfit ranked across the last four years? Are the regular attacks on the club’s seemingly lavish expenditure warranted?
City finish 3rd in expenditure list for 2023/24 season
City headed into last season as treble winners, but Guardiola felt that further strengthening was required. He authorized the mega money signing of Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig for £75m, as well as a further £50m on Wolves attacking midfielder Matheus Nunes. And he wasn’t finished there.
Further deals were penned for electric Belgian winger Jeremy Doku (£50m), Mateo Kovacic (£25m), and Argentinian teenager Claudio Echeverri (£15m). The combined £220m spent was the third highest in the league according to Transfermarkt, behind Chelsea and Spurs, with the former of those two London rivals forking out a whopping £390m on new additions, taking their spending during the Todd Boehly era to over £1bn.
The impact of the signings was evident on the field, with Manchester City enjoying yet another successful season. As mentioned, they managed to cling on to the Premier League title once again, as well as pick up the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. Unfortunately for them, though, there were plenty of disappointments as well, with the penalty shootout defeat to Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and the 2-1 defeat to cross-city rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup final proving particularly painful.
City finish 10th in expenditure list for 2022/23 season
Manchester City claimed the UEFA Champions League for the first time in 2022/23, as well as winning both the Premier League and the FA Cup to complete just the second-ever table in the history of English football. But perhaps the most surprising fact of their meteoric success was the fact that the club finished down in tenth in the expenditure list that year, forking out £130m on players that term, below the likes of Leeds United, Wolves, and Nottingham Forest. Thanks to the sales of Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, and Oleksandr Zinchenko, the club made a £7m profit on players.
The club’s biggest outlay came in the form of former Borussia Dortmund hitman Erling Haaland, who has since had some serious issues with injuries. The Norwegian striker had a £50m release clause in his contract at Signal Iduna Park, and the Blues were only too happy to trigger that and bring the powerhouse forward to the Etihad. Further deals were completed for the likes of Kalvin Phillips and Manuel Akanji, with both players going on to enjoy differing fortunes on the blue side of Manchester.
City finish 3rd in expenditure list for 2021/22 season
In the 2021/22 campaign, City found themselves in a familiar position towards the top of the rankings once again, ultimately spending the third most amount of cash in the league, behind Arsenal and Manchester United. The club spent just shy of £120m on just two players that term, making Jack Grealish the first ever £100m Englishman, as well as bringing in future Argentina World Cup winner Julian Alvarez from River Plate.
Both players managed to impress throughout the campaign, helping the Blues to a second straight Premier League title. Unfortunately, that was as good as it would get, with the Blues losing out in the semifinals of both the Champions League and the FA Cup to Real Madrid and Liverpool respectively.
City finish 2nd in expenditure list for 2020/21 season
In the 2020/2021 season, Manchester City headed into the season as hunters rather than hunted. Liverpool romped to Premier League glory in the previous campaign for the first time in three decades. The Blues set about their challenge and duly strengthened, finishing with the second-highest transfer bill in the league. However, with global events disrupting the footballing calendar and affecting the clubs’ cash flow, spending across the globe was severely reduced.
The stadium that wasn’t affected, however, was the Etihad. The city spent £145m on new additions that season, bringing in the likes of Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake, and Ferran Torres. The result? Ripping the title away from Anfield and returning it to Manchester City’s overflowing trophy cabinet.
