Thursday’s signing of Jack Grealish added to Pep Guardiola’s spending with Manchester City and the £1-billion mark could be broken should they complete a move for Harry Kane this summer.
Grealish arrived from Aston Villa as the Premier League’s first £100m player while Kane, who would most likely cost even more, has yet to report back for pre-season training at Tottenham as he seeks to force through a move.
Here we take a look at Guardiola’s spending since he joined City in 2016.
Season by season
While many fees are undisclosed and feature add-ons over the course of the deal, leading to a reliance on reported or estimated figures, Guardiola’s gross spend is at least £880m after Grealish’s arrival.
His biggest outlay came in his second season in charge, 2017-18, when the club spent over £200m on defensive reinforcements alone and around £273m in total.
Goalkeeper Ederson arrived for £35m in the summer window alongside high-priced full backs Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy and Danilo, with centre back Aymeric Laporte arriving for £57m in the January window. The £43m summer signing of Bernardo Silva added to the considerable outlay.
The following season was the only one with Guardiola spending less than £100m, with winger Riyad Mahrez arriving from Leicester for £60m but no other big-money signings of note.
John Stones, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus and Ilkay Gundogan contributed to a near £170m spend in Guardiola’s debut season in 2016-17, Rodri and Joao Cancelo were twin £60m-plus arrivals in 2019-20 and centre backs Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake alone cost a combined £103m last summer.
Grealish is comfortably the club’s record signing and the first Premier League fee in nine figures, providing a huge jolt to City’s spending even if his records may soon fall to Kane.
Rodri heads a clutch of deals at £60m or just over, along with Dias, Mahrez and Cancelo, while Laporte was not far behind.
Deals between £45m and £50m have also been commonplace, with Mendy, Stones and Walker in that bracket and add-ons taking the latter beyond £50m, while Bernardo and Ake also cost over £40m and Sane and Ederson £35m or more. Jesus, Danilo, Gundogan and Ferran Torres also broke the £20m barrier.
Manchester monopoly
The most expensive English players in history have overwhelmingly moved to Manchester, with City and rivals United both heavily represented on that list.
Grealish follows England teammate and City academy product Jadon Sancho, who joined United from Dortmund for £73m, as a big-money arrival this summer with United defender Harry Maguire’s £80m arrival from Leicester in 2019 splitting the pair at the top of the all-time list.
Walker, Raheem Sterling and United full back Aaron Wan-Bissaka all cost around £50m, with only Chelsea full back Ben Chilwell and Arsenal newcomer Ben White splitting up the one-city monopoly.
