Summer transfer verdict: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, more

The Premier League summer transfer window closed on Aug. 30, and it ended with England’s top division posting its lowest net spend for a decade and a drop of almost £400 million in spending from the previous year.

The business climate has changed, with clubs losing an aggregate of nearly $1 billion last season, five times as much as 2018-19, the last pre-pandemic campaign. This has led them to adopt profit and sustainability regulations (PSR), which in turn has dampened spending. But the leading clubs have still been busy, either recruiting or offloading players, so it is time to review just how they have performed their transfer business.

At the end of last season, Gab Marcotti and Mark Ogden performed the role of sporting directors by prescribing what Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United needed to do during the summer window. The Keep or Dump series assessed each club’s needs, not only in terms of ins and outs, but also contractual issues with players and managers, while working within their unique financial restraints.

So with their business now done until January at the earliest, here is Keep or Dump: The Verdict.

ARSENAL

WHAT WE SAID: Arsenal’s biggest issue to address was in central midfield and the need for additional personnel alongside Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard. Mark and Gab disagreed on the need for Arsenal to sign a proven centre-forward — Gab backed Kai Havertz to shoulder the goal-scoring burden — but there was alignment on the requirement for goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale to be moved out and a new backup keeper to be signed.

Arsenal also had plenty of fringe players to shift to raise funds to help comply with PSR, but off the pitch, the big issue centred on manager Mikel Arteta and the absolute priority of securing him to a new contract due to his existing deal having less than 12 months to run.

WHAT THEY DID

• Spent: £92 million
• Raised: £70 million

KEY INS

• FW Raheem Sterling (Loan, Chelsea)
• GK David Raya (£27m, Brentford)
• MF Mikel Merino (£27m, Real Sociedad)
• DF Riccardo Calafiori (£38m, Bologna)
• GK Neto (Loan, Bournemouth)

KEY OUTS

• MF Emile Smith Rowe (£27m, Fulham)
• FW Eddie Nketiah (£25m, Crystal Palace)
• GK Aaron Ramsdale (£18m, Southampton)
• MF Mohamed Elneny (free, Al Jazira, UAE)
• MF Fabio Vieira (Loan, Porto)
• FW Reiss Nelson (Loan, Fulham)
• DF Nuno Tavares (Loan, Lazio)
• MF Albert Sambi Lokonga (Loan, Sevilla)

OGDEN: Arsenal have done well with their outgoings, raising some big fees for homegrown players (Smith Rowe, Nketiah), and you have to say that banking £18m for Aaron Ramsdale while replacing him with Neto on loan is excellent business. But there are two unresolved issues for me: coach Mikel Arteta’s contract, and the failure to sign a centre-forward.

Sorry Gab, but as good as Havertz is, he isn’t a centre-forward and we have already seen this season how Arsenal have missed goal-scoring opportunities that would have been taken by a true goal scorer. Victor Osimhen, Ivan Toney and Viktor Gyökeres would all have taken Arsenal to another level, but the club didn’t make a serious move for any of them. Raheem Sterling will add goals, but again, he’s not a striker.

As for Arteta, I just find this contract delay quite weird. I expected a big announcement on the eve of the season to say he had been tied up for four or five years, but there was nothing. He’s great for Arsenal and Arsenal are great for Arteta, so what’s the problem?

MARCOTTI: I think it’s a good window and yeah, they generally did as we suggested. I would have thought Oleksandr Zinchenko might have moved on too, but maybe the market wasn’t there for him and he’s seen as contributing in midfield as well.

They have legitimate depth at centre-back now with Calafiori and Jurrien Timber hopefully staying fit. The Sterling thing is what it is: one of their big London rivals essentially paying them £10m a year so he can play for Arsenal. Low risk, high reward.

On the striker front, yes, I don’t think they needed a big name and I’m OK with upgrading Nketiah (especially at that fee). But I would have thought someone might have come in. Instead, I guess Havertz’s backup is some combination of Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling or Leandro Trossard. No genuine centre-forward there, but I think they can take Nketiah’s minutes. The main concern, I think, is if Havertz misses a prolonged period. That’s where you’d feel it.

On Arteta, the silence has been deafening. It’s one of two things. Either there is so much trust between the two parties that they’re genuinely relaxed about it and see no issue, or they’ve talked extension and things haven’t gone well at all, but both agreed — for the good of the club — to keep it quiet. I’m just surprised nobody has talked about it.

CHELSEA

WHAT WE SAID: Both Gab and Mark agreed on the need for a more coherent summer of transfer ins and outs at Chelsea and a pointer towards a clear strategy being played out. But this is Chelsea, so that was perhaps wishful thinking.

Stamford Bridge has seen its revolving door whirl throughout the summer, initially with a new manager, Enzo Maresca, walking through following Mauricio Pochettino’s exit after just a season in charge. Maresca is Chelsea’s fifth manager in two years. Gab and Mark suggested that Chelsea listen to offers for Raheem Sterling, while Gab disagreed with Mark’s call for Cole Palmer to be rewarded with a new contract. There was agreement on the need to offload Conor Gallagher due to the midfielder entering the final year of his contract.

But having posted losses of £90.1m for the last financial year — PSR rules limit losses to £105m over three years — Chelsea had to find a way to balance the books with some smart player trading.

WHAT THEY DID

• Spent: £203.3 million
• Raised: £163.5 million

KEY INS

• FW Pedro Neto (£54m, Wolves)
• FW João Félix (£42m, Atletico Madrid)
• MF Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£30m, Leicester)
• FW Estevao Willian (£29m, Palmeiras)
• GK Filip Jorgensen (£20.7m, Villarreal)
• DF Aaron Anselmino (£15.6m, Boca Juniors)
• MF Renato Veiga (£12m, Basel)
• FW Jadon Sancho (Loan, Man Utd)
• DF Tosin Adarabioyo (Free, Fulham)

KEY OUTS

• DF Ian Maatsen (£37.5m, Aston Villa)
• MF Conor Gallagher (£35m, Atletico Madrid)
• MF Lewis Hall (£27m, Newcastle)
• FW Romelu Lukaku (£25m, Napoli)
• FW Omari Hutchinson (£20m, Ipswich)
• FW Angelo (£19m, Al Nassr)
• FW Raheem Sterling (Loan, Arsenal)
• DF Thiago Silva (Free, Fluminense)
• FW Hakim Ziyech (Free, Galatasaray)
• DF Malang Sarr (Free, Lens)
• GK Kepa Arrizabalaga (Loan, Bournemouth)
• DF Trevoh Chalobah (Loan, Crystal Palace)
• FW Armando Broja (Loan, Everton)
• GK Djordje Petrovic (Loan, Strasbourg)

OGDEN: Where do you start with Chelsea? Another ridiculous summer window has passed without any obvious kind of strategic thinking beyond the idea that signing young players will eventually deliver some long-term value, either in terms of what they do off the pitch or fees they generate when being offloaded.

The one obvious area in need of strengthening was centre-forward, but despite finally dispensing with Lukaku, Chelsea ended the summer without a striker. But never mind: they ended up with even more wide players (Sancho) or forwards who like to float around in search of a defined role (Joao Felix).

I don’t know how Chelsea make their financial numbers stack up, but they did at least raise plenty of money by moving on homegrown players such as Maatsen, Gallagher and Hall. Chelsea followed our advice by listening to offers for Sterling — and they were right to improve Palmer’s contract — but they were too heavy-handed with the way they treated players they did not want by banishing them to train with the kids.

MARCOTTI: There’s no point judging Chelsea based on traditional parameters. They have decided to do things differently — effectively viewing players into assets to be monetised and traded — and they didn’t do this because they wanted to stink and lose money, they did it because they think it will work in the long-term.

Solving PSR was the main priority and, apparently, they’ve done that. But on the pitch — and this might sound incredible considering all the players they have — I think they’ve left themselves short in two positions.

One is striker, like Mark said, because you need an alternative to Nico Jackson who isn’t Marc Guiu, and the other is central midfield, where Enzo Maresca’s game could have benefited from a deep-lying playmaker (like he had with Harry Winks). Neither Moisés Caicedo nor Enzo Fernández fit that bill. And given that the only back-ups are Romeo Lavia (whose injury record is well-chronicled) and Kieran Dewsbury-Hall, I think they’re somehow understaffed here (and could maybe have kept one of Andrey Santos or Lesley Ugochukwu).

I don’t get the logic in spending big on two Portuguese wingers/Jorge Mendes clients. But I guess in a summer where the biggest priority was moving guys out, something had to give. Here too, it wasn’t great. I’d imagine they would have much rather moved guys like Broja and Chalobah on a permanent basis, let alone Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell (who is still there).

LIVERPOOL

WHAT WE SAID: Despite the risk of allowing both players to enter the final year of their contracts, Gab and Mark suggested that the smartest way to handle the managerial transition from Jurgen Klopp to Arne Slot was to sit tight with Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk and make a judgement call on their futures as the season progresses.

It was a different story with Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is also out of contract in 2025, with the England defender needing to either negotiate a new deal or the club listen to offers. As it stands, the Alexander-Arnold situation is unchanged, and he now has just 10 months to run on his contract.

The signing of a new midfielder and some housekeeping with fringe players, such as Fábio Carvalho and Sepp van den Berg, was suggested as the main focus of transfer business.

But with Klopp leaving behind a strong squad, there was no real need for Liverpool to be too active in the transfer market this summer.

WHAT THEY DID

• Spent: £36 million
• Raised: £40 million

KEY INS

• GK Giorgi Mamardashvili (£25m, loaned back to Valencia)
• FW Federico Chiesa (£9m, rising to £11m)

KEY OUTS

• DF Sepp van den Berg (£20m, Brentford)
• FW Fabio Carvalho (£20m, Brentford)
• GK Adrián (free, Real Betis)
• MF Stefan Bajcetic (loan, Salzburg)
• FW Ben Doak (loan, Middlesbrough)
• DF Calvin Ramsay (loan, Wigan)
• DF Nat Phillips (loan, Derby)
• MF Thiago Alcantara (released)
• DF Joel Matip (released)

OGDEN: Liverpool have basically taken the view of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” with their summer business. It’s really unusual for a big club to make just one addition — Mamardashvili won’t arrive at Anfield for another year — and in Chiesa, they have taken a low-risk gamble on a very good player, but one who needs a reboot after some bad injuries.

I thought Liverpool would do well to get £10m for Carvalho, but they ended up with double that; they also did well with a similar fee for Van den Berg. But while their transfer business has been smart and calm, let’s cut to the chase: Liverpool have left themselves with a problem when it comes to Alexander-Arnold.

At 25, he is approaching the peak of his career and will expect a contract to match that, so it should have been resolved a long time ago. Alexander-Arnold holds all the aces. He either signs a massive new deal and probably becomes the club’s highest-paid player or he leaves as a free agent next summer. Whichever way it goes, Liverpool face a big financial hit and they could have avoided by sorting it out at year ago.

Salah and Van Dijk are different because both are in their early-30s and require a different approach, but Alexander-Arnold should either have been signed to a new deal or offloaded this summer.

MARCOTTI: We agreed on waiting on Salah and Van Dijk, and so did the club. They’re on such big money that it makes no sense to get them to commit now. See where they are, see if they want to stay and on what terms.

Alexander-Arnold is different. Ideally, he would have been extended, but equally, he’s such an unusual right-back that I guess it makes sense to let Slot assess him before committing huge money to an extension. — even at the risk of him leaving on a free transfer.

We did push the to sign a defensive midfielder and having tried unsuccessfully for Martín Zubimendi, they opted to stay put and try to find a solution in-house. The shift to a 4-2-3-1 should help in that sense, but it does feel like a bit of a risk.

Chiesa is a low-risk signing with a big upside and a hedge against Salah leaving at the end of the season. You do wonder about minutes: you have six senior forwards on starter-type money, plus Harvey Elliott. It might have made sense to shift one and use the funds to double down on that defensive midfielder.

MANCHESTER CITY:

WHAT WE SAID: Manchester City went into the summer with very little to worry about — on the pitch, at least — but Gab and Mark pinpointed three areas for attention during the summer.

The first was to work out how to navigate the reality of Pep Guardiola entering the final year of his contract. Yes, City could try to seal a new deal, but with so much uncertainty off the pitch because of the Premier League investigation into 115 charges of wrongdoing — City deny all charges — the Guardiola issue was always going be something to keep an eye on in the background.

Succession planning on the pitch, in terms of preparing for life without the likes of Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva, was the key area of business, alongside finding a forward to act as cover for Erling Haaland should he miss games through injury. Either way, this always looked like being a quiet summer of business at the Etihad.

WHAT THEY DID

• Spent: £21 million
• Raised: £120 million

KEY INS

• FW Savinho (£21m, Girona)
• MF Ilkay Gündogan (free, Barcelona)

KEY OUTS

• FW Julián Álvarez (£63m, Atletico Madrid)
• DF João Cancelo (£21m, Al-Hilal)
• DF Taylor Harwood-Bellis (£20m, Southampton)
• GK Sergio Gómez (£7.5m, Real Sociedad)
• MF Kalvin Phillips (loan, Ipswich)

OGDEN: City have done incredible business from a financial perspective, with a net profit of £99m this summer. That cash means they will either be in a very healthy position to spend big next summer or, if the worst-case scenario comes to fruition and they are hit with a huge fine at the end of the Premier League hearing, they will have money in the bank to pay any financial penalty.

As it stands, Guardiola has not signed a new contract and City have offloaded a key striker — Julian Alvarez — rather than sign another one. The reason Alvarez left was because he wanted more game time in the biggest matches, so signing a player capable of filling in for Haaland was always going to face the same challenge of convincing them that it would be worth sitting on the bench while the Norway forward adds to his incredible goal tally.

City have done well with their outgoings, however, and re-signing Ilkay Gundogan from Barcelona was risk-free deal.

MARCOTTI: I actually thought they needed another forward as cover for Haaland and instead, they let the only other forward they had (Alvarez) go. It’s a great deal financially but I think they’re short. It basically means that whenever Haaland is unavailable, you’re going to need to adapt your style of play. I would have gone for someone who can be an off-brand Haaland at least in terms of movement.

Gundogan fell in their lap and Savinho was a no-brainer who can help straight away. As for that succession planning? Other than moving Phil Foden inside on a permanent basis, there isn’t much, but again, maybe that’s understandable, given the uncertainty with Guardiola and the 115 charges and what happens next.

MANCHESTER UNITED:

WHAT WE SAID: It was a case of “buckle up and prepare for a rough ride” with Manchester United at the start of the summer because the club had so much to do in the transfer market, even before they decided to end uncertainty over manager Erik ten Hag’s future by retaining him in his role. Gab and Mark also urged the club to undertake major surgery on the squad by moving on several players and recruiting younger and better ones to replace them, all in a summer that was going to be hampered by PSR restrictions that were exacerbated by a failure to qualify for the Champions League.

Gab and Mark identified a likely net spend of £100m — a figure helped by the suggested exits of a host of fringe players. A new centre-back, defensive midfielder and forward were pinpointed at priority targets with the added bonus of a new right-back if finances allowed.

And both Gab and Mark agree that it would be unnecessary to extend the contract of captain Bruno Fernandes beyond its 2026 expiry.

WHAT THEY DID

• Spent: ££180.5 million
• Raised: £87 million

KEY INS

• DF Leny Yoro (£52m, Lille) • MF Manuel Ugarte (£42m, PSG)
• DF Matthijs De Ligt (£38m, Bayern Munich)
• FW Joshua Zirkzee (£36m, Bologna)
• DF Noussair Mazraoui (£12.5m, Bayern Munich)

KEY OUTS

• MF Scott McTominay (£25m, Napoli)
• FW Mason Greenwood (£22m, Marseille)
• DF Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£15m, West Ham)
• DF Willy Kambwala (£8.5m, Villarreal)
• MF Hannibal Mejbri (£5.5m, Burnley)
• FW Facundo Pellistri (£5m, Panathinaikos)
• DF Alvaro Carreras (Benfica, £5m)
• MF Donny van de Beek (£500,000)
• DF Raphaël Varane (free, Como)
• MF Omari Forson (free, Monza)
• FW Jadon Sancho (loan, Chelsea)
• FW Anthony Martial (released)
• DF Brandon Williams (released)

OGDEN: Let’s be honest, Gab. Manchester United have pretty much done exactly what we told them to do and for the first time in over a decade, they have had a very good summer in terms of player trading.

The one negative is the decision to extend Bruno Fernandes’s contract — they didn’t need to do that because there was no queue of clubs wanting to pay a huge fee and big wages to take him away from Old Trafford. But let’s not linger on the negatives when United did some smart business this summer. They shifted lots of players for decent fees and addressed all of the key areas that we pinpointed at the end of last season.

I’m not sure that they have properly addressed the need for a new forward by signing Zirkzee — he’s a gamble and time will tell — but De Ligt, Ugarte and Mazraoui are all upgrades on what United had before.

Casemiro is still on the books (along with his a very big contract), and both Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelöf could leave for nothing next summer, but all in all, United have done well.