Premier League spending hits record levels

Spending in the January window was roughly £130 million, taking the league's total for 2013-14 to £760m - breaking the £700m barrier for the first time.

Manchester United signed Juan Mata for a club-record £37.1m in January's biggest move - with Chelsea investing £12m of that into the signing of Kurt Zouma, although the Frenchman will remain with Saint-Etienne for the remainder of the season.

This year's total was well below the record for a January window, £225m in 2011, but a series of big-money moves earlier in the campaign have helped the overall figure.

Arsenal smashed their transfer record to sign Mesut Ozil for £42.5m, with Chelsea spending an estimated £60m to bring the likes of Andre Schurrle, Willian and Samuel Eto'o to Stamford Bridge.

Tottenham reinvested a world-record fee for Gareth Bale into seven signings, including Erik Lamela, Roberto Soldado and Paulinho among others.

Manchester City were typically free-spending, signing Fernandinho, Jesus Navas, Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetic on multi-million-pound deals.

Meanwhile, the added money in the English top-flight thanks to record television deals allowed a number of clubs further down the table to break their transfer record.

Newly-promoted duo Hull City and Cardiff City have each broken their record on three separate occasions this term and Deloitte's Dan Jones can only see the trend continuing.

He said: "It is important to put this in context; the transfer spending is supported by the record level of revenues of Premier League clubs, driven primarily by new broadcast agreements.

"This gives Premier League clubs the ability to continue to invest significantly in their playing talent.

“Spending has again been driven by a minority of clubs, with just two accounting for more than 60 per cent of the league’s total spending.

"Around half of Premier League clubs chose not to spend this month.”

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