Premier League clubs spent a combined £3.19bn on signings this summer, smashing the previous record for a single transfer window as they scrambled to strengthen their squads.
This week's Between the Lines, a new Sky Sports strand breaking down the data behind the biggest stories in football, picks out some of the spending and selling trends from an historic window.
Liverpool break spending record
Liverpool's move for Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi collapsed on Deadline Day but they still recorded the highest-spending transfer window by any club in Premier League history.
Their British-record £125m move to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle took their total spend to £446.5m, surpassing the £434.5m spent by Chelsea in the summer of 2023.
The Isak deal ensured Liverpool broke their transfer record twice in one window having already signed Florian Wirtz for £116.5m from Bayer Leverkusen. Having also brought in Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Hugo Etkike and Giovanni Leoni, the champions have strengthened their squad comprehensively.
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Chelsea pass £300m in sales
While Liverpool smashed the spending record, Chelsea had a record-breaking summer in terms of sales, becoming the first club to pass the £300m mark as they recouped a total of £314.4m.
The Blues allowed a total of 23 players to leave the club permanently and received fees of £20m or over for nine of them. Their biggest sale was that of Noni Madueke to Arsenal for £52m, followed by that of Joao Felix to Al Nassr for £43.7m.
Other sales included those of Christopher Nkunku, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Djordje Petrovic, which banked Chelsea a combined £90m as they joined AC Milan, Everton and Bournemouth respectively. It should be noted, though, that, of those three, only the sale of Petrovic generated profit relative to his purchase price.
Chelsea's record-breaking sales total does not include the £70.5m obligation included in Nicolas Jackson's loan move to Bayern Munich, a sum which will see the club more than double their money on the striker, signed from Villarreal for £30m in 2023.
At the other end of the scale, newly-promoted Leeds were the only Premier League side not to generate any funds through sales.
Low sales put Arsenal top for net spend
Both Liverpool and Chelsea spent more than Arsenal but it's the Gunners who come out top in terms of net spend having only recouped £10m in sales compared to Liverpool's £228.1m and Chelsea's record-breaking £314.4m.
Arsenal did manage to trim their squad, with Fabio Vieira, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Jakub Kiwior, Reiss Nelson and Oleksandr Zinchenko joining the list of exits on Deadline Day. But generating funds through sales remains a challenge for the club.
There were expiring contracts in the cases of Thomas Partey, Jorginho and Kieran Tierney, while others were only shipped out on loan. The club will recoup £24m through the obligation in Kiwior's loan to Porto, but that will come next year.
The only money received in sales this summer came from Marquinhos's £2.5m move to Cruzeiro and Nuno Tavares' £7.5m exit to Lazio, leaving them with a table-topping net spend having made eight signings at a cost of £267m.
The books will need to be balanced further down the line.
Intra-club Premier League deals on the rise
Another trend this summer was an increase in deals between Premier League clubs. Players with experience of the competition and its unique intensity are increasingly in-demand.
As recently as six seasons ago, intra-Premier League club deals were relatively rare. This summer, though, the money spent on signings between Premier League clubs topped £1bn, up from £788m last year. The pattern of the last eight campaigns suggests the trend will continue as clubs target Premier League-ready additions.
A staggering splurge on forwards
More than 60 per cent of the £3.19bn spent by Premier League clubs this summer went on forwards. There was a huge scramble to add firepower led by the competition's elite sides.
Liverpool added the most expensive forward of the lot with their Deadline Day move for Isak, taking their total spent on forwards to £320.5m having already signed the second and third-most expensive forwards in Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike.
Manchester United also invested heavily in their front line, signing Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha for a combined £207m, while Arsenal and Chelsea also went big, with Viktor Gyokeres, Eberechi Eze, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap among their attacking additions.
The money received by Newcastle for Isak went on Stuttgart's Nick Woltemade and Brentford's Yoanne Wissa, while other eye-catching deals saw Mohammed Kudus move from West Ham to Spurs for £55m and Dango Ouattara go from Bournemouth to Brentford for £42m. West Ham were the only Premier League side not to pay a fee for a forward in the window.
It all added up to an eye-watering combined total.
European leagues lag behind for spending
The scale of the spending by Premier League clubs dwarfed that of clubs in Europe's other major leagues.
Italy's Serie A was the next-highest spending league but its total of £893.8m spent did not come close to the Premier League's £3.19bn.
Spending in the German, Spanish and French leagues was even lower. While Premier League clubs finished with a net spend of £1.4bn, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 registered profits.
In terms of net spend, the highest-spending European clubs were Atletico Madrid, Como and Real Madrid, but their totals of £109.5m, £83m and £80.4m respectively were only comparable to mid-ranking Premier League teams.
Incredibly, newly-promoted Sunderland had a net spend more than twice as high as that of Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain's £64.9m, at £141.4m.
The numbers underline the widening financial gulf between Premier League clubs and their European counterparts.
Where did your club get stronger or weaker? Last week, Between the Lines broke down net spending figures by position to show the impact on the transfer window on Premier League teams.
