Liverpool sign more players than any other Premier League club, Arsenal joint lowest

Brendan Rodgers has been the busiest Premier League manager this summer, bringing 11 new faces to Liverpool – more new signings than Manchester United and Chelsea combined.

 

With four days remaining in the transfer window, no other Premier League club has accumulated more players than last season’s runners-up. In fact, eight per cent of all of the league's signings have joined Liverpool. 

 

With talismanic top scorer Luis Suarez sold to Barcelona, and a busier fixture list thanks to a return to the Champions League, Rodgers has beefed up his squad ahead of the new campaign.

 

 

Only two clubs who finished in the Premier League’s top seven last season have acquired more than five new players so far this transfer window. Everton are closest to their Merseyside rivals with seven new signings, while Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal all have five or less.

 

 

Behind Liverpool in terms of new players signed sit West Bromwich Albion, with 10, followed by Newcastle and Leicester with nine each. West Brom and Newcastle are looking for a refresh after frustrating campaigns last term, while Leicester are looking to add improvements to the side that won them promotion from the Championship.

 

Arsenal and Crystal Palace have been the least active clubs so far this summer, both are responsible for just 2.9 per cent of new Premier League signings.

 

 

Liverpool have spent a total of £131m on their new collection, including £27.3m on Dejan Lovren and Adam Lallana, £17.6m on Mario Balotelli and £22m on 20-year-old Serbian Lazar Markovic.

 

On average, the five-time European champions have shelled out £11.9m per new player. However, if you discount the free signings Lawrence Vigouroux and Kevin Stewart – players who are likely to feature more prominently in the club’s academy teams – that average rises to £14.5m.

 

This all means that on the back of their highest league finish for five seasons, Liverpool have already broken their own record for both transfer expenditure and net spend as they look to consolidate their re-emergence as top four contenders.

 

Although Liverpool did receive a huge fee of around £70m for Suarez, a large chunk of that cash has already been put back into their new-look squad. The Reds currently have a net spend (transfer fees received subtracted from transfer expenditure) of £57.1m, breaking the previous record of £50.29m set two seasons ago.

 

 

Liverpool’s approach in this transfer window of buying medium-priced players in bulk stands in contrast to rivals Manchester United who have actually spent over £10m more despite making six fewer signings.

 

The success of such an approach remains to be seen (only three have started a game so far this season), yet many have pointed to the example of Tottenham last year as a warning sign to Liverpool fans.

 

With a huge chunk of cash guaranteed from Gareth Bale’s expected departure, Spurs spent £107m last summer, hoovering up seven new players to replace the Welshman. Only two of those players played over 25 league games (Paulinho and Roberto Soldado – and they both struggled at times) and Spurs finished one position lower with three fewer points than the season before.

 

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Liverpool will suffer from the same fate. Tottenham were hamstrung by disputes between managers Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood, and technical director Franco Baldini. Brendan Rodgers, in contrast, maintains he has the final call on all targets raised with the club’s “transfer committee”. Furthermore, Erik Lamela, considered the biggest Spurs flop of the lot last season, has started this campaign strongly.

 

Liverpool fans may also be patient with their new arrivals – especially talented youngsters Emre Can and Markovic – while Rodgers will have to carefully manage a swollen squad if Liverpool are to repeat the dramatics of last season.

 

Explore our interactive transfer map below to find out how much Liverpool (and every other Premier League club) has spent in the transfer window, the players they’ve signed, and where those players have come from.

 

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