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During a recent conversation with a senior executive of a Premier League club, he compared one of the key trends of this summer’s transfer market to the UK advertising industry in the 1990s.

“Nobody ever got fired buying TV ads during Coronation Street,” he said, referring to the country’s longest-running soap opera on ITV.

In the United States, there’s a similar phrase — “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” — because the tried, tested and respected products rarely failed.

In each case, the principle is about minimising risk by adopting the most conventional and trusted route. So, what is the Premier League’s answer to Coronation Street or IBM?

On the basis of this summer, it is the belief that by signing players from the Premier League, a club is operating with the least jeopardy and is most likely to produce immediate and substantial results.

The evidence is overwhelming in the summer spend by the 20 current Premier League teams on players registered last season to Premier League clubs, therefore including purchases from relegated West Ham, Wolves and Burnley.

By the time the window closed at 11pm local time last night, Premier League clubs had spent £3.6billion ($4.9bn), according to an analysis by The Athletic, and £1.7bn ($2.3bn) of this was spent on those in last season’s Premier League,in a spend that shatters all previous windows for spending within the division. (The graphic below does not need include Tottenham’s obligation to buy Omar Marmoush for £60m after his season-long loan.)

In the six summer windows between 2017 and the 2022 seasons, the average Premier League spend on players registered to Premier League clubs in the previous season was £418.2m, which means we have seen a comparative fourfold increase this summer.

We are, therefore, witnessing a significant realignment of the transfer market for which there are both explanations and consequences. In recent years, even as Premier League clubs invested hugely on their sporting operations, spending lavishly on data models, scouting, sporting directors and analytics, there has come to be a consensus that the physicality and intensity of the Premier League requires recruitment to be focused on those with substantial Premier League experience.

The term “Premier League proven” has become a mantra in some boardrooms after major investments from other leagues failed to reap short-to-medium term returns. For executives and coaches, particularly those at the biggest clubs which cycle through personnel at ever greater speed, the pressure to win fast has heightened this view.

This has been most visible in the summer recruitment of Tottenham and Manchester United. In the five summer windows between 2020 and 2025, United committed transfer fees to only one outfield senior player from a Premier League club: Mason Mount from Chelsea.

They instead pursued value elsewhere but a litany of missteps, in particular from Italy (Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee, Andre Onana) and the Netherlands (Donny van de Beek, Antony, Tyrell Malacia), has now led the club to prioritise home shopping.

Across last summer and this summer, United have made eight senior signings and all except for Senne Lammens, signed from Royal Antwerp in Belgium, were purchased from Premier League clubs.

Tottenham have taken an even more dramatic swing in this direction, with all 10 players signed this summer purchased or loaned from Premier League clubs. This comes at a premium, with almost £400m spent, when including the £60m obligation to buy for Marmoush.

Chelsea, who continue to recruit broadly from the global market in the youth bracket, also adjusted their model, prising five of their eight senior signings from Premier League clubs, with Morgan Rogers, Maxence Lacroix, Emi Martinez, Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson all arriving.

There are certain positions on the field where “Premier League proven” now appears non-negotiable, at least across several Big Six clubs who tried and failed to break away into a Super League in 2021.

Take central midfield, for example, where Manchester United bought three midfielders for £148m from Premier League rivals, Arsenal recruited Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle for £75m, Manchester City spent over £240m on Elliot Anderson and Enzo Fernandez, and Tottenham spent £185m for Sandro Tonali and Matheus Fernandes. Both Arsenal and Chelsea previously committed over £100m to furnish their midfields with oven-ready Premier League central midfielders in Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo in previous summers.

There are some clubs who resisted the home market entirely and retained their imagination and discovery for the wider field. Liverpool, Fulham and Bournemouth recruited six, five and four players respectively, none from the Premier League. Newcastle signed up nine players, of which only Nico Gonzalez — a £52million recruit from Manchester City — came from the Premier League. Sunderland signed five players in total, four of which were external market buys. Others have been a total mish-mash. Brighton signed 11 players from 10 different leagues, but their biggest purchase by a distance was Luka Vuskovic for £50m from Tottenham.

Plenty of people will look at this, shake their heads in mild or total disbelief at some of the fees involved, and question why any of it matters so long as their team has finished the window with a better chance of picking up three points this weekend.

Enzo Fernandez completed his move to Manchester City on deadline day from Chelsea (Manchester City)

Yet what we have seen in this window indicates that the Premier League is now, to a significant extent, operating its own football economy, washing money around among its member clubs and leaving the rest of Europe fighting for its scraps. This is a logical outcome of the media rights trends of European football, where the Premier League’s international television deals have come to dwarf those of Spain, Italy, France and Germany. The result is that the Premier League’s most prized (and unwanted) talents are now largely unsellable anywhere outside of England.

The English top-flight has therefore been forced to reconcile with another reality: it must deal with its rivals closest to home. This therefore means that not only do Chelsea pick off one of Aston Villa’s best players in Morgan Rogers, but Aston Villa then become one of Chelsea’s few options to be able to offload Alejandro Garnacho and Nicolas Jackson.

Some of these deals have posed questions of both the diligence and doggedness of executives. Many deals have appeared to have prices set by comparing the player in question to other players previously sold on the market, but in some cases, these have defied the laws of supply and demand. To take Jackson, for example, here was a player clearly unwanted by Chelsea who would not have featured much, if at all, at the club this season. In the absence of clubs abroad being capable of buying him and matching his Chelsea wages, why did Villa see it as necessary to pay a £65m fee? Who was the under-bidder driving the price this high?

A similar question may be posed about Savio at Manchester City, who scored one Premier League goal last season and appeared on the outs at City, only for Tottenham, absent of much competitive tension, to stump up £85m. Gonzalez, another player clearly not wanted at City, fetched over £50m from Newcastle, but who was bidding £35m, £40m, or £45m to take the price this high?

Perhaps the ultimate absurdity came in the option applied to Mykhailo Mudryk’s loan move to Tottenham, where the London club agreed to Chelsea’s request to implement a £75m option for a player who has not kicked a competitive ball for over two years, owing to a drugs ban, and had only five Premier League goals prior to that.

As Premier League teams spend more, and keep more, of their money in their own division, perhaps the solace for those abroad is to be found here, in knowing that Premier League teams continue to make strange decisions when exposed to vast revenue streams and major pressure to hit their targets for their next cash prize, whether that be avoiding relegation or European qualification.

Major European leagues are ever more anxious about the teetering financial and competitive imbalance of the continent, and the Premier League’s wealth is foremost among those concerns. English teams have won three of the past four UEFA Conference League trophies and both of the past two Europa League titles. It is only a tiny number of super-clubs preventing Premier League dominance in the Champions League.

Those exceptions are Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and perhaps a couple of clubs in Italy, but, as a rule, the salaries even of mid-table Premier League players are often a stretch or beyond the reach of most foreign clubs competing in the Champions League.

PSG remain the kings of Europe despite the Premier League’s strength (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

This has led to a major increase in intra-Premier League transfers. In the summer preceding the 2024-25 season, this came in at £791m, rising to £1.2bn last summer, before jumping up to £1.7bn this time around.

Across the Premier League this summer, 20 players were purchased from within last season’s division for £40million or more. Tottenham bought five, Manchester United and Manchester City each bought three, Arsenal and Chelsea got two apiece. Aston Villa, Brighton, Brentford, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle each bought one.

While 11 Premier League clubs bought a Premier League player for £40m or higher, only five Premier League players were sold outside of the Premier League for £40million or higher: Rodri and Anthony Gordon were sold to Barcelona, Marc Cucurella was sold to Real Madrid, and Tijjani Reijnders and Ollie Watkins headed to Saudi Arabia. Across Europe, the number of clubs making any signings at all, from any market, for over £40million was vanishingly small.

Of the top 18 non-Premier League teams who qualified among the top 24 from last season’s Champions League group phase, only Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and PSG have purchased a single player this summer for £40m or more. Only seven of those 18 teams — the aforementioned, plus Juventus, Galatasaray and Juventus — have signed a single player for £30m or more.

Across the Premier League, 12 Premier League teams have bought 28 players (from all markets) with single fees of £40m or higher, and 13 Premier League teams have bought 45 players with fees of £30m or higher. Every Premier League team has acquired at least two players worth over £20 million.

Of the 164 signings made by Premier League clubs, 37 per cent of the players are signed from clubs in the Premier League last season. Yet signings by the Premier League accounted for 48 per cent of the division’s total £3.6bn spend. If we add in the £151.5m spent on players who played last season in the Championship, this means that 52 per cent of the Premier League’s total spend has gone to Premier League clubs.

Outside of the Premier League, the division’s spending benefited France much more than any other country. The Premier League purchased 21 players from the French top two divisions, spending £621.4m, compared to £262.97m in the Bundesliga, £187.09m in La Liga, £157.2m in Serie A, £118m in Portugal and £102.1m in Belgium.

The Premier League’s spending in its own division and in France combined accounted for 50 per cent of the Premier League’s total spend this summer, with big-money moves by Liverpool in signing Bradley Barcola for £123m from PSG and Manchester City in signing Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for £86m. A further £53.7m spent by promoted Ipswich Town in France means that three English clubs — Liverpool, Man City and Ipswich — accounted for 54 per cent of the Premier League’s overall spending in France.

Despite the Premier League spray-gunning its wealth across Europe, it should be noted how concentrated this spending has been across a relatively small number of clubs in certain markets. In France, for example, 67 per cent of the £621.41m was split (not equally) between four clubs: PSG, Lille, Strasbourg and Toulouse. Just under 50 per cent of it went to PSG and Lille alone, teams who are already richer than their divisional rivals on account of qualifying for the Champions League.

In Greece, Premier League teams spent a total of £44m on three players, all of which went to last season’s runners-up Olympiacos.

In Austria, the Premier League spent £24.6m on three players, but around £20m went to Red Bull Salzburg, the team which has won 13 of the past 18 Austrian championships. In Portugal, £92.3m of the Premier League’s £118m spend went to Benfica and Sporting CP.

The hope, therefore, is that European football will behave as trickle-down economics on steroids, whereby these teams will then raid their own countries’ middling and smaller teams for their best talent. But in many cases, this spending only reinforces an already established financial hegemony, going to teams who have the biggest revenues in their own backyard.

As the Premier League’s wealth becomes more localised in England, there are more markets that may now fall even further behind. The Premier League spent only £187m in La Liga this summer, around a quarter of which was due to Fulham unexpectedly collecting young players from Real Madrid. The Premier League did not sign a player for over £50m from either Spain or Italy, with almost £90m of the Premier League’s £157.2m spend in Italy going to Atalanta via Chelsea’s purchases of Marco Palestra and Honest Ahanor.

Perhaps the most diminished markets were the Netherlands and Scotland. Scotland brought in £13m from the Premier League, with Celtic’s biggest sale to Championship club West Ham, who paid £22m to sign midfielder Arne Engels.Dutch clubs sold just £33.4m worth of players to the Premier League, and no player for over £10m.

For Premier League clubs, it is pocket change and perhaps we now do have a Super League after all, in all but name in England.