Mikel Arteta second to Pep Guardiola in biggest-spending managers since 2020 with £650m
Pep Guardiola is the only manager who has spent more than Mikel Arteta this decade. One has 11 trophies to show for it, while the other has one FA Cup.
Here are the top 10 highest-spending football managers since the 2020 summer transfer window. Figures are from Transfermarkt.
10) Graham Potter (£413.6m)
A single January transfer window at Chelsea is doing an outrageous amount of heavy lifting for current West Ham head coach Potter.
Potter’s Chelsea signings includes Enzo Fernandez for over £100million and Mykhaylo Mudryk for around £62m; he got two months out of them before being sacked.
9) Eddie Howe (£415.7m)
Head coach of the richest club in football, Howe has spent a little more than Potter on seven fewer players. His record signing is Alexander Isak for £60m and what a player he has been for Newcastle.
8) Ange Postecoglou (£420.7m)
Levy out, yeah?
After bringing a flurry of Japanese players to Celtic, Postecoglou has been backed with some big-money signings at Tottenham Hotspur.
Although Spurs have been very hit and miss during Big Ange’s tenure, a lot of his signings – from Dominic Solanke to Wilson Odobert – have impressed when fit.
7) Luis Enrique (£496.8m)
The first manager here to spend over 600 million euros, Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain spent a whopping £80m on flop Randal Kolo Muani and recently splashed out £60m on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
Other signings include Joao Neves, Ousmane Dembele and Bradley Barcola, who have all been outstanding in 2024/25 as PSG chase an unbeaten title-winning season in Ligue Un.
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6) Mauricio Pochettino (£532.9m)
Having managed PSG and Chelsea in the last five years, it is no surprise to see Pochettino’s name high here.
The current United States boss had two windows at Stamford Bridge, signing the likes of Moises Caicedo and Cole Palmer. Between January 2021 and July 2022 in Paris, Pochettino’s most expensive signing was Achraf Hakimi and he was the manager in charge of that potentially legendary window when Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Georginio Wijnaldum all joined on free transfers.
5) Jorge Jesus (£533.4m)
Jesus has made the most signings of these managers but is behind four managers in total, including former Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper, which should surprise nobody.
The 70-year-old has been at Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia since July 2023 and has been backed with signings like Neymar for £80m, Malcom for £50m and Ruben Neves for £45m.
4) Thomas Tuchel (£553.3m)
Tuchel will not be conducting any transfer business for a while as he prepares for his first England game, but he has managed Chelsea, Bayern Munich and PSG in the 2020s, making his inclusion inevitable.
Tuchel only had one Chelsea window under Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali but it was an expensive one and while working for Roman Abramovich, the German spent a fair whack.
Romelu Lukaku and Harry Kane are his two most expensive signings of the last five years, while Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Mauro Icardi also cost a pretty penny.
For all of his spending, Tuchel backed it up with a Champions League at Chelsea and Bundesliga title at Bayern.
3) Erik ten Hag (£613.9m)
Like Tuchel, former Manchester United manager Ten Hag has some silverware to show for his hefty spending, and boy will he not let you forget it.
With 23 signings at Ajax and United, the Dutchman wasted an unholy amount of money at Old Trafford. You might remember him for signing flops such as Antony, Rasmus Hojlund, Casemiro and Mason Mount.
He has actually signed Antony twice this decade so the odds are that he will rescue him from United when he lands another job.
2) Mikel Arteta (£647.8m)
Arsenal manager Arteta has found himself second on this list, which will raise some more uncomfortable conversations about him and the Gunners’ lack of silverware under his management.
To be fair to Arteta, the majority of his big-money signings have been successful. The jury is still out on Kai Havertz and other players like Riccardo Calafiori, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Thomas Partey, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus have been far too injury-prone since joining the Gunners.
With Liverpool running away with the Premier League title, the pressure is on Arteta to deliver the Champions League this term or a meaningful trophy in 2025/26, or be replaced by a manager capable of getting Arsenal over the line.
👉 READ MORE: Two 2024/25 signings in bottom four, Declan Rice third – Mikel Arteta’s 30 Arsenal signings ranked
1) Pep Guardiola (£804.7m)
It will probably not surprise anyone that Guardiola has landed in top spot here. The Spaniard has always been backed in the transfer market wherever he has been and Manchester City’s filthy-rich owners have been more than happy for him to get the players top of his wish list.
His most expensive signing is Jack Grealish, who has not lived up to the £100m transfer fee, but Josko Gvardiol, Ruben Dias and Erling Haaland have very much lived up to theirs.
👉 MORE: Bespoke Premier League tables | Premier League prize money table | Most expensive January 2025 transfers
