Three Main Trends Of Premier League’s Second-Biggest January Transfer Window

Premier League clubs have spent close to $400 million this January.

That’s the largest winter transfer window spending since 2017/18, when clubs signed the likes of Aymeric Laporte, Virgil van Dijk and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for huge fees. It is also the second-highest amount ever spent by Premier League clubs in January.

The huge spending over the last month shows that many Premier League clubs are confident of their finances following the pandemic. Last winter, clubs tightened their belts and spent a little over $100 million, less than half what they spent in the two previous winters.

But this year, spending is back up. And that spending seems to be following three major trends.

Long-term Planning

While January often sees clubs panic-buying to save their season, some of the biggest buys this winter have been ones for the future.

Liverpool made one of the largest deals of the transfer window when they signed Colombian international Luis Diaz from Porto. With four top-class forwards competing for three slots on the team, having a fifth gives Liverpool a lot more depth for the remainder of the season. But they could have done with that depth earlier in January when Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane headed to the Africa Cup of Nations.

Instead, like van Dijk’s signing in 2017-18, Diaz looks more like part of a long-term plan. In an ideal world, Liverpool might have waited to the summer for the Porto forward, but they were forced to act now due to interest from other clubs.

Mane and Salah are 29 and Roberto Firmino is 30. They are all nearing the ends of their contracts, and Liverpool would be taking a huge risk if they signed all three on long-term big-money deals.

It could well be the case that one or more of those three superstars leaves in the near future and the 25-year-old Diaz, once he has had time to bed in at Anfield, becomes part of Liverpool’s new front three.

Manchester City’s signing of Julian Alvarez has gone under the radar, but could prove to be the transfer of the window. The 22-year-old Argentina international is one of South America’s hottest prospects, breaking onto the scene last year with 18 league goals to help River Plate win the Argentine Primera Division. But he will stay at the River Plate until at least the summer, and it could be even longer before Alvarez actually plays for City.

Premier League Pull Factor

At the other end of the table, the Premier League’s pulling power is becoming even more apparent. Aston Villa and Brentford added superstars Philippe Coutinho and Christian Eriksen, respectively, albeit with other factors like Eriksen’s heart problem explaining why they didn’t end up at bigger clubs.

Newcastle United made several short-term signings as they look to stay in the Premier League, but their new-found wealth has meant that despite their league position, they have managed to bring in England international Kieran Trippier from La Liga champions Atletico Madrid and the highly-rated 24-year-old Brazil international Bruno Guimaraes from Lyon.

The biggest show of Premier League pulling power though is arguably Burnley’s signing of Wout Weghorst. Burnley are rock-bottom of the league, and there is probably at least a 50% chance they’ll be in the Championship next season, but they have managed to sign the fourth-highest goalscorer in the Bundesliga last season.

Only Robert Lewandowski, Andre Silva and Erling Haaland scored more than Weghorst’s 20 league goals in 2020/21, and the Netherlands international has managed at least 16 goals in each of his three full seasons at VfL Wolfsburg. If he can bring that scoring rate to Turf Moor, then it will massively increase Burnley’s chances of survival.

Weghorst’s buy could be viewed as a panic-buy to replace Chris Wood, who himself is a short-term signing by Newcastle United. But across the league as a whole, many clubs like Wolverhampton Wanderers and Brighton and Hove Albion have been thinking long-term this January.

Despite being the second-largest winter transfer window on record, half of the teams in the Premier League spent less than $10 million on transfers, and some of the biggest moves of the window have been free transfers or loans.

January Clearance Sale

Tottenham Hotspur brought in Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus, but also let midfielders Tanguy Ndombele, Bryan Gil and Giovani Lo Celso all leave on loan. Manchester United loaned out Amad Diallo, Anthony Martial and Donny van de Beek, while Arsenal let Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang join Barcelona for free.

Between them, Spurs, Manchester United and Arsenal let players they had paid a total of more than $300 million for leave on loans or free transfers in January. Part of that might be good planning for the future, but it also suggests some expensive mistakes were made somewhere along the line.

With the sums spent this January, in among the new signings could be next season’s expensive mistakes.