Manchester City’s surprisingly poor defense of the Premier League title has seen Pep Guardiola make three big-money signings – with the potential for more to come.
City have signed Eintracht Frankfurt forward Omar Marmush ($59 million), Palmeiras defender Waiter Rais ($29.6 million) and Lens center back Kodeir Khasanov ($33.6 million).
They hadn’t previously made a major signing in January since Emerick LaPorte for $57 million in 2018.
Paul MacDonald of FootballTransfers.com said: “In January 2023, £815m was spent and represented 28.4% of all transfer fees spent that season – the highest of any year in the last decade. It’s the year.
“But there were some mitigating factors. Chelsea alone were responsible for $286 million of that. We also saw a sense of desperation among sides threatened with relegation – Leeds, Southampton, Leicester, Who would eventually go down – and Bournemouth spent more than 200 meters between them to try to avoid the drop.
“But 2024 saw a complete reset – €96 million was spent, just 3.9% of the season’s total spending, as teams appeared happy with their improvements and, crucially, well aware of the emerging PSR restrictions. were and chose to retain any spending power.”
Profitability and sustainability rules have hampered clubs – with Everton and Nottingham Forest set to break Premier League spending rules. Received points deduction last season.
No club has scrapped the rules this year.
MacDonald added: “2025 is shaping up to be a more active window than last year, Manchester City is extremely dynamic.
“But after their quiet summer of business and the headroom to amass a very strong PSR position with others like Manchester United, maybe not so lucky.
“Liverpool probably have the PSR headroom as well, but their focus will be on renewals rather than acquisitions, as Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah are too much to hold onto.
“And Chelsea are still trying to find a balance by offloading some of the massive players they’ve brought in – but again, they could look at the summer window as the right place to move. They may see this as a better place to extract the perceived surplus from the requirements.”
