News Thread

Girona are the surprise package of European football this season with the Catalonia side flying high at the top of La Liga after a stunning 4-2 win over rivals Barcelona at the weekend. The Spanish side’s incredible season is highlighted by the fact that they’ve accumulated the most points across Europe’s top five leagues and they are also amongst the top goalscorers.

The race for the two extra Champions League places based on European performance this season has become clearer after the culmination of the group stages. As it stands, Germany and Italy are leading the race but England and Spain are in strong contention ahead of the knockout stages in 2024. 

The Premier League is the next of the top five leagues to get new market values before Christmas, and the world’s most expensive football market has two midfielders, who already broke the €100 million mark in the last update, making further progress – worldwide, there are now only six players with a higher market value than the pair. While the biggest losers of the update, Manchester United, drop clearly behind Liverpool, while rivals Manchester City boast the biggest plus of the update and reach their highest squad value since April 2020. With only a marginal loss, the most valuable league continues to maintain a total value of €11 billion.

Manchester United have endured a difficult season and that’s resulted in their overall market value falling more than any other English Premier League club to €799.35 million in the latest Transfermarkt update. Erik ten Hag enjoyed a successful debut campaign, leading United to third place and their first trophy in six years with the League Cup. The improvement was expected to continue this season after investing €203.4m in the summer with Andre Onana, Mason Mount and Rasmus Hojlund all high-profile arrivals.

Chelsea’s abysmal 2023 has extended over the last few months and their overall market has dropped by €16.2million in the latest Transfermarkt update. Only Manchester United’s squad valuation has dropped more than Chelsea but, remarkably, their squad remains the third most valuable in the English Premier League at €982.8m, behind just Manchester City and Arsenal. Their ranking is predominantly down to their squad and their massive investment in the transfer market across recent windows. Chelsea spent €467.8m in the summer, more than €200m more than any other club, although they recouped €269.4m in player sales. Chelsea also spent €611.49 during the 2022/23 season and their total expenditure of €742.03m across the last three windows is more than double second biggest spenders Manchester United.

It’s been a positive start to Ange Postecoglou’s tenure at Tottenham Hotspur and their squad market value has slightly increased by €7.2 million to €754.8m in our latest update. Postecoglou enjoyed a dream start to his Tottenham career after moving from Celtic in the summer with the Australian boss collecting 26 points from his first ten games to take the North London club top of the table.