Premier League spending topped £1bn in the summer transfer window alone in 2016, with almost £200m already having been shipped in January.
Manchester United signed Paul Pogba for a world-record fee of £93.25m in August, but their spending over the last 12 months (£149.55m) was still topped by rivals Manchester City, whose £174.2m outgoings were the highest in the English top flight.
Eric Bailly (£30m) and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (£26.3m) were also signed by Jose Mourinho in his first transfer window in charge at Old Trafford after the club did not buy any player in January.
City’s collective purchases of John Stones (£50m), Leroy Sane (£37m), Gabriel Jesus (£27m), Ilkay Gundogan (£21m), Claudio Bravo (£17.1m), Nolito (£13.8m), Marlos Moreno (£4.75m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£3.4m) helped see them top the table for money spent.
Antonio Conte also splashed the cash after returning to club football from his time in charge of the Italy national team. His summer acquisitions totalled all but £3.5m of Chelsea’s £122.7m total for the year and were beaten by only the Manchester sides.
Arsene Wenger has frustrated supporters for a lack of investment in recent years but after spending just £5m in January on Mohamed Elneny, the £91.1m on Shkodran Mustafi (£35m), Granit Xhaka (£34m), Lucas Perez (£17.1m), Rob Holding (£2m) and an estimated fee of £3.4m for Takuma Asano saw Arsenal ranked fourth in the Premier League’s list of spenders.