This summer’s transfer window seemed particularly never-ending and actually lasted longer because of the prorogation allowed by the FA to Man United for Falcao’s signing and consequently Welback’s arrival at Arsenal. The two transfers came well after midnight and were necessary for the Premier League’s aggregate spending to exceed the wall of 1 billion euros and set a new spending record!

The table below shows the ten leagues that spent the most during this summer’s transfer market. Impressive how EPL spent way beyond all other leagues, meeting September’s deadline with a negative balance of nearly half a billion euros. But what most stands out is the difference in the average buying price: close to three times Bundesliga’s and more than ten times the average fee spent in Serie A. Other noticeable outliers rely in the number of players who left or joined a Serie A club during this summer. The Italian twenty top clubs have actually employed more footballers than the other big-4 leagues combined! This is mainly because of the lack of liquidity the Campionato is lately suffering, forcing clubs to an abundant number of loans.

	LEAGUE	EARNINGS	DEPARTURES	BALANCE (in millions)	AVERAGE INCOME TRANSFER (in millions)	AVERAGE DEPARTING TRANSFER (in millions)
1	Premier League	€ 543,74	382	-€ 490,66	€ 2,92	€ 1,42
2	Spanish La Liga	€ 530,55	340	€ 50,17	€ 1,27	€ 1,56
3	Serie A	€ 288,93	811	-€ 34,44	€ 0,23	€ 0,36
4	Bundesliga	€ 198,57	229	-€ 85,09	€ 1,01	€ 0,87
5	Ligue 1	€ 218,15	261	€ 84,10	€ 0,47	€ 0,84
6	Championship	€ 128,61	415	€ 21,70	€ 0,29	€ 0,31
7	Portuguese Primeira Liga	€ 195,74	293	€ 96,64	€ 0,26	€ 0,67
8	Russian Premiere Liga	€ 28,40	213	-€ 44,64	€ 0,32	€ 0,13
9	Turkish Süper Lig	€ 38,78	404	-€ 32,91	€ 0,15	€ 0,10
10	Qatar Stars League	€ -	17	-€ 57,10	€ 2,20	€ -
11	Dutch Eredivisie	€ 130,08	283	€ 98,22	€ 0,12	€ 0,46

Serie A moves – Currently not being able to compete with the international scene the Italian managers had to come up with possible remedies to bypass the financial situation and still sign the necessary players to strengthen their line-ups. Many top clubs opted for experienced players, offering substantial contracts to big names who new they where no longer needed by their former managers: Fernando Torres (age 30), Alex (32), Diego Lopez (32) and Menez (27) all joined Ac Milan with no transfer fee. Same path and reasoning behind Evra’s (33) move from Man United to Juventus, Vidić (32) to Inter Milan and the joining of As Roma by Seydou Keita (34) and Ashley Cole (33).

AS Roma deserves the Italian throne of this summer’s market. Yet again Walter Sabatini managed to maximize capital gain from his players. Earlier in his career he made Palermo and Roma benefit from the sales of Pastore, Marquinhos and Lamela. This year another centre-back was sold for capital gain after only twelve months since his signing: Benatia bought for 13 million was sold for € 26 M and the money was wisely re-invested in young and promising players like Iturbe, Manolas and Ucan.

Juventus on the other hand struggled but in the end managed to keep Pogba and Vidal in Turin whilst decided to let go of Simone Zaza and their 50% share of Ciro Immobile, preferring to play their chips on the young Spanish forward Alvaro Morata and the offensive midfielders Roberto Pereyra and Kingsley Coman, who most likely have a shining future ahead.

 

Regarding Ac Milan, we concluded the Rossoneri’s seasonal analysis with the following words: “There must be no more sweeping under the carpet, no more random and useless players. There must be a clear and firm cut of the dead branches, at least six or seven players shouldn’t (and as a matter of fact should never had) be seen training in Milanello”. The result: Constant, Robinho, Traoré, Emanuelson, Didac Vilà, Birsa and Matias Silvestre have all been considered superfluous and opened up slots for the players previously mentioned in addition to Pablo Armero, Adil Rami and the last-minute signing of Giacomo Bonaventura from Atalanta. Galliani and his staff’s summer’s operations included the well known sale of Mario Balotelli which contributed to the +15 million balance at the end of the transfer window, but also saw the CEO sign millionaire three and four-year deals to players who might not perform their best for that long.

With their loss against Athletic Bilbao, Napoli not only lost the qualification to the group stage of the Champions League but also did not receive the necessary money for a big move on the transfer market. Despite this, Rafa Benitez now has a few new players to work with: Koulibaly, De Guzmàn, David Lòpez and the older Michu haven’t impressed the demanding fans but might be worth more than the supporters believe. .

Follow @s_garini