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Crisis, what crisis? Southampton are the Premier League’s biggest transfer window earners
After a record-breaking transfer window in which £889m was spent by Premier League teams, Southampton stand out as a club apart.
The excessive fees, star names and lavish splurges may have stolen the headlines yesterday, yet while the rest of the league was busy racking up a total net spend of £438m, Saints made a healthy profit of £40.9m – one of the biggest overall earnings a Premier League side has ever made in a single transfer window.
In fact, Southampton were one of just two sides to have made come out of this summer’s window in profit, the other being Swansea who made a comparatively miniature £2.5m.*
In contrast, Manchester United recorded a jaw-dropping net spend of £135.6m, while Arsenal and Liverpool had totals in excess of £50m.
At one stage earlier in the summer, things had looked pretty desperate for Saints. Players who had formed an integral part of their impressive first two seasons back in the top flight formed an orderly queue out of the exit door. Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren followed each other to Liverpool while defenders Calum Chambers and Luke Shaw joined Arsenal and Manchester United respectively. On top of that, manager Mauricio Pochettino left for Tottenham.
Yet while the jarring loss of so many familiar faces naturally caused consternation, Southampton accumulated a massive £105m in transfer fees – more than any other club and around £20m more than second highest earners Chelsea.
Encouragingly for the St. Mary’s faithful, Canadian chairman Ralph Krueger has not been afraid to reinvest that money back into the squad. In fact, Southampton actually recorded the fifth-highest transfer spend in the Premier League this summer. Only Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal spent more on new recruits.
In early August Krueger insisted that the club would emerge out of the 1 September in a strong position.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Krueger said:
Our goal is to finish this transfer window where you can say, ‘Actually they’ve got a plus now. They are a stronger team than they were before’My message to the fans would be that they went through a hard time but there are good times ahead.
Amid the bluster and bombast of transfer deadline day, Southampton quietly secured the loan signing of Toby Alderweireld from Atletico Madrid and finalised the £10m capture of Senegalese striker Sadio Mane from Red Bull Salzburg. Alderweireld is a defender who appeared at this year’s World Cup and in the Champions League final, while Mane has a goal-scoring record greater than one in every other game.
Good times ahead? With £40m in the bank and a hungry new squad at manager Ronald Koeman’s disposal, there is no reason to believe Krueger won’t be proved right.
Continue exploring our data with our interactive graph showcasing the net spend of every all 20 of this season's Premier League clubs:
*All data courtesy of the excellent transfermarkt.co.uk