It’s international break time, which often means it’s a period of little news for Tottenham Hotspur. The respite from never-ending club fixtures does though provide an opportunity for retrospection, and there are plenty of talking points stemming from Spurs’ tumultuous start to the 2026/27 Premier League season.
One talking point that won’t go away is that of Spurs’ activity in the transfer market, with the summer transfer window slamming shut™ around a month ago. It was an eventful summer for the Lilywhites,
with a multitude of players entering and exiting the club, and the outlay has very quickly been formed into a cudgel with which to bash the team amidst their early failings on the pitch.
It follows several unsuccessful seasons (ahem, Europa League 2025 Champions, anyone?) on the football field and arguably in the transfer market, with criticism from both fans and pundits alike surrounding Spurs’ business over the last decade not exactly in short supply. In fact, even though the most recent window has been “different” for Spurs, criticism continues and one could say that while a new melody has seemingly floated from the windows of Spurs’ front office, the song has remained the same with transfer activity yet to translate into success on the pitch.
With that in mind, it seemed like the time was ripe for a new, three-part series, diving deep into the numbers surrounding Spurs’ transfer activity from both this window and beyond, and to ask that age-old question: are Spurs BAD at transfers? What does success in the transfer window even look like? And is there light at the end of the tunnel?
To help with this analysis, Cartilage Free Captain has collected data (courtesy of Transfermarkt) on Spurs’ transfers (and league performance) over the past five seasons,^ as well as those of the three most successful clubs (i.e the last three league winners) through that time period: Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City (ahem), to analyze how their approaches compare and determine whether Spurs are indeed turning a corner… and if we can expect success this season and beyond.
^ Data for this piece cover senior player incomings and outgoings in summer windows only; whether a player is considered a senior player or not is determined by Transfermarkt; promotions from youth teams are not included. Additionally, loan to buy deals are treated as just that: loans, and I have tracked free outgoing transfers and player releases separately… but more on that later. Basically, the idea was to compare apples with apples wherever possible.
How unusual was Spurs’ summer window really?
Firstly, let’s take a look at the recent window. Many a commentator has waxed lyrical about Spurs’ huge transfer spend over the summer, arguing that a club investing the money Spurs have should be seeing immediate success on the football pitch.
Putting aside the fact that it can take time to build cohesion amongst an overhauled squad and that preparations for the season were impacted by the World Cup and an international preseason trip, did Spurs really have a window so extraordinary that fans and pundits could expect immediate success?
Well, not exactly.
Transfer spend and income, last 5 summer transfer windows
Firstly, Spurs’ summer isn’t that unusual when it comes to spend. The thing is (and it’s not exactly a happy point to make) that of the four clubs in our analysis, Spurs have the highest gross transfer spend over the last five summers AND the highest net spend. That’s not good, and easy ammunition with which to criticize the club; but in comparison, Spurs’ gross spend this summer was significantly less than that of Manchester City’s, and their net spend less than Liverpool (use the dropdown at the top of the visualization to filter by season).
In fact, we can dig more into some metrics to really assess how this summer compares:
Change in transfer activity vs the previous four summers, averaged
Tottenham Hotspur saw growth across each of the above five metrics this summer in the form of transfer spend (or gross transfer spend), transfer income, net spend, incoming transfers, and total player transactions (or squad churn / deal flow) but Liverpool and Manchester City both saw greater increases in net spend and incoming transfers, while Arsenal had a summer more focused on outgoings (use the arrows at the top to scroll through the clubs). In fact, the only area that really stands out for Spurs is the deal flow achieved over the course of the summer:
Total number of transfers by season
This summer was an outlier, not just by Spurs’ standards, but by the other clubs’ as well, with Spurs moving a significant number of players into and out of the club in what was an extremely busy summer. This is potentially where the newly appointed Rafi Moersen, formerly of City Football Group, helped Spurs up their game in his new Director of Football Operations role, pushing through a substantial number of deals quickly and efficiently.
With that in mind, while Spurs’ spending was not hugely notable as some may suggest, the data do paint a picture of an aggressive approach to the transfer market, perhaps in an attempt to overhaul a squad that had achieved two consecutive 17th place finishes.
So… what then is the expected outcome of this considerable squad turnover?
Does refreshing your squad result in success?
At the risk of giving our readers a spoiler… not really. Here are some more data for you: total transfers in and out against the points change in the ensuing season, with the size of the plot net transfer spend (this season is excluded, as we don’t yet know what the points change will be).
Squad churn analysis: total player transactions vs points change from previous season
Honestly, you’d be struggling to make any sort of correlation there. If you squint, you could maybe say more transfers generally result in an upward trend in points, but it’s a real stretch. Case in point: Spurs themselves. Going into the 23/24 season, they brought in and sold / released a total of 13 players and finished with six more points than in 22/23; but in the summer of 24/25, shifted the exact same number of players before falling a whopping 28 points down the Premier League table.
In short, the quality of player likely matters much more than the quantity – more on that in the next piece.
What else stands out about Spurs’ summer window?
It’s not just the deal flow that was unique in Spurs’ busy 26/27 summer transfer business; there were a few other points of interest that caught the eye as well, all relating to a particular punditry cliche, and all visualized below:
Transfer metrics over the last five seasons: Average incoming age, largest two signing fees, signings from English clubs (%)
Firstly, as we all know you can’t win anything with kids, so Spurs planned on overcoming their long Premier League drought by focusing on “experienced” older players. The average incoming age this summer was 27.4, behind only Arsenal going into their 24/25 season. That’s a metric that paints the summer in a slightly different light, with Spurs investing heavily in players from which they are unlikely to receive a return. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing given the way Spurs spent this summer, but how long can Spurs afford to continually afford to invest like this without making profit on a decent chunk of their players?
The second item of note was Spurs breaking their transfer record… not just once, but twice. Spurs “splashed the cash” on a couple of “big-money signings” to try turn their fortunes around, with Mateus Fernandes’ arrival for €99 million slightly overshadowed by the transfer of Sandro Tonali for €108 million. Spending over €200 million on just two players is unusual for Spurs, and isn’t exactly a regular occurrence for the other clubs in our analysis either – though also not uncommon. City spent close to €300 million on Enzo Fernandez and Elliott Anderson this summer as they looked to overhaul their midfield, while Liverpool spent nearly as much going into last season on Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz with… mixed results; so while it’s nice to see Spurs in similar territory, they aren’t exactly in uncharted waters when it comes to landing that specific, elusive transfer target at any cost.
Lastly, there’s the clear focus on “propa football lads” from the English football pyramid… or at least, “Premier League-proven” signings. Spurs’ forays into the European market in recent years haven’t yielded the greatest of returns, so this summer marked a clear shift in strategy to targeting that experience on English soil, with every single one of Spurs’ ten signings coming from a club in the UK. It’s a significant outlier (and quite odd, in all honesty) compared to both Spurs’ history and the strategies of the other clubs: Arsenal’s English-heavy recruitment, Liverpool’s continental approach, and Manchester City’s melting pot of talent.
This all paints a pretty clear picture of Spurs’ recruitment strategy in the summer: invest heavily in experienced, Premier League-ready players while significantly turning over the squad. Whether that will return success remains to be seen.
That’s a question I’ll attempt to answer in Part 2, alongside transfer success drivers, as we attempt to answer: are Spurs BAD at transfers?
