With their hands tied, Aston Villa are outperforming a club who spent £446m in the summer and another who have splashed out £1.6bn in the last five years.
Liverpool, the Premier League champions who got recruitment badly wrong last summer, could yet catch Villa in the table, but both clubs are still primed to secure Champions League football next season.
That is in part thanks to Chelsea, who have slipped from contention after a torrid run, ensuring the Blues are no closer to where they want to be under BlueCo despite another £295m spent on players this season.
Villa meanwhile spent the least among Premier League clubs, while they are also 17th for net spend the last three years, a period in which they have juggled the restraints of profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) while playing European football.
You only have six guesses for the six clubs topping net spend in that time. It is of course the Big Six, with Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool all north of £320m and Chelsea £188m.
Premier League net spend
- 1. Arsenal – £409m
- 2. Tottenham – £405m
- 3. Man Utd – £392m
- 4. Man City – £367m
- 5. Liverpool – £322m
- 6. Chelsea – £188m
- —
- 17. Aston Villa – £42m
Last three years per Transfermarkt
Villa’s £42m is more than four times lower than Chelsea, and almost 10 times less than relegation-threatened Spurs, an indication of how much the Midlands club have had to rein it in after a £130m net spend the previous three years (their outlay was helped significantly by selling Jack Grealish for £100m in 2021).
Now the Big Six in all-but name given Villa and Newcastle United have both disrupted the established order in recent seasons, Tottenham’s plight is a particular reminder that money is no guarantee of success.
And yet it stings Villa to know they could not have spent as freely, nor as they would have hoped, more wisely, without being punished.
The rules are there to stop this league from becoming a state-owned or multi-billionaire’s playground, but the fact this door only closed after Chelsea and City reached the summit is why theories abound about the league protecting its wealthiest assets while inflicting pain on others.
Only Everton and Nottingham Forest have been deducted points in the Premier League for breaches in the PSR era, while in March Chelsea were fined £10.75m after admitting to secret payments over a seven-year period when owned by Roman Abramovich.
Chelsea’s “proactive self-reporting” and “exceptional cooperation” were noted by the Premier League as it considered various sanctions.
Few would argue against a £10.75m fine being short change for billionaires, while ever fewer need reminding that 130 charges still loom over Manchester City, all of which they strongly deny.
Co-operating has led to drastic measures. Last year both Chelsea and Villa were fined for breaching Uefa’s financial rules. They also both sold their women’s teams to their respective parent companies in order to comply with PSR.
But despite those similarities, Chelsea and Villa are on either side of the door, with the latter’s ambition shackled because they were not owned by a person or entity with vast wealth early enough.
Villa head coach Unai Emery has been vocal about such restrictions. Ahead of their season opener against Newcastle, the Spaniard noted both sides are “clubs doing good management, who will never be allowed to dream” in his programme notes.
Defender Ezri Konsa said PSR “killed” Villa last year, while both Tyrone Mings and John McGinn bemoaned the loss of boyhood Villan Jacob Ramsey to Newcastle.
“It seems to be the way football is set up these days,” McGinn said.
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Frustrations have been tempered and words carefully chosen, but really Villa should be angrier.
They are fourth with PSR in place. They pushed Arsenal and Manchester City close in the winter, and though their title ambitions faded, they are edging closer to a second Champions League campaign in three years and are three games away from winning the Europa League.
All this while being held back, thus underlining both the strength of their greatest asset, Emery, and the reality that we will never truly know what heights they could have reached under his watch had they been freer to strengthen where he saw fit.
