Revealed: The Highest Spending Premier League Managers Since 2000 - Find Out Who Tops The List!

We all know that Premier League football clubs spend vast amounts of money these days and the reasons can differ depending on where they sit in the food chain. The expense can be carried out in the pursuit of victory, or it can be carried out to keep the relegation trapdoor at bay.

As the cost of Premier League success becomes all the more expensive, the demand from managers becomes more frequent. A club at the top of the league ladder needs a new striker to keep them there; a team at the bottom needs to shore up its leaky defence.

The board members who release the funds sweat over the latest round of investment and if it pays off, it can be viewed as money well spent. On the other hand, if such expenditure by managers does not have the desired effect, the money is viewed as wasted.

This leads to asking which managers have spent the most since the turn of the millennium and, perhaps more importantly, are their employers are getting value for money when it comes to transfer outlay.

Which EPL Managers Have Spent the Most Money?

The first way to measure this is by looking at the 50 Premier League managers that have spent the most money since the 2000/01 season got underway and are list of half centurions looks as follows: 

At the top of the list, it is Jose Mourinho who has become the purchasing special one. With an outlay of more €1,34bn, the Portuguese manager has signed 64 players during his stint as a Premier League manager with Chelsea and Tottenham.

While that outlay sees Pep Guardiola pushed down to second – a position that the Spaniard is not usually accustomed to but one that he will have to contend with. At an expenditure of €1,23bn, Mourinho is undoubtedly in the current Manchester City manager’s sight.

Pep could well overtake Jose Mourinho as the Premier League's biggest spender

Should Guardiola stay at the Etihad helm for at least a couple more seasons and Mourinho moves on to PSG in the summer as expected, there is no reason that their current rankings of one and two will not switch over.

Thankfully for the pair they will not be threatened by Arsene Wenger anytime soon. That is unless the Frenchman makes a sensational return to the Premier League. With that looking unlikely, the former Arsenal boss will have to be content with signing 81 players for just over €890m.

Rounding out the top five when it comes to Premier League spend since the turn of the millennium are Jurgen Klopp who has spent €716.5m since his arrival at Liverpool and this is €25m more than that of former Swansea, Liverpool, and Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers.

Brendan Rodgers has not been tight when it comes to splashing out at his clubs and sits in the top five - Image: shutterstock/Mikolaj Barbanell

Of course, we must also give an honourable mention to Sir Alex Ferguson in sixth. The Manchester United managerial legend lies sixth in the table and with transfer fees being far less inflated in the 1990s, who knows what his overall figure of €666m could have risen to in the modern day.

Now that we know the top 50 in terms of Premier League manager spending since the start of the 2000/01 season, we need to understand better which men have the most largesse when it comes to purchasing players. 

Average Spend by Manager

The best way to measure this is by looking at the average spend of the managers in our database and list them from top to bottom: 

When looking at the list of 50 managers on an average spend basis it is Maurizio Sarri who went big during his one season at Chelsea. Just four players were shipped into West London his watchful eye, the overall outlay of €208m works out at €52m per player. 

Sarri spent an average of €52m per player he signed for Chelsea - Soccer.ru, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

While Erik ten Hag has only been in the current Manchester United hotseat for a season and although he will expect to be there for a lot longer than that, he may need to turn down the rate of expenditure.

Six players have arrived at the Theatre of Dreams under ten Hag and with €243m being spent by the Dutchman, it equates to just over €40m per player – a figure that just knocks Thomas Tuchel into third position.

Although when you look at the top six there is an incredibly interesting development and one that sees Manchester United and Chelsea responsible for each of the top half dozen (with a slight hint of Everton to go with it).

The three managers mentioned are joined by the trio of Frank Lampard, Louis Van Gaal and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer behind them. Not one of them have lifted the Premier League trophy albeit Tuchel did lift a Champions League crown in 2021.

The first manager to lift a Premier League trophy in the average spend list is Pep Guardiola in seventh. The Manchester City manager averages €28m per player at the Etihad. Not bad for a man who has delivered four titles to the club. 

Of course, it is not all about the glitz and glamour of the Premier League’s elite, this list of 50 managers also focuses on the men who are more akin to firefighting or, at the very least have a penchant for being a wheeler-dealer.

Sam Allardyce - Source: leedsunited.com

The best example of someone who puts out fires is none other than Sam Allardyce. The now Leeds manager has purchased 56 players during his multiple stints as a top-tier boss, each of those 56 equates to a total of €273.9m or €4.89m on average.

Such an average puts Allardyce in 49th place out of our top 50 and it is almost fitting that the man who loves a bargain props up the table. That man of course, is none other than Harry Redknapp, and he has signed 61 players at a total of €297.4m or €4.87m on average.

Our 'Arry knows how to pick up a bargain! - James Boyes from UK, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The average spend of a manager will certainly provide us further context, but what if we were to look at arguably the truest measure of value? How much has it cost each Premier League-winning manager to win a title. 

10 men have achieved such legendary status since the beginning of the 2000/01 season and here is how the look when looking at their spend from an efficiency perspective.

Before we take a deep dive, we must clarify the data here. For someone who has managed more than one club, their overall spend is measured, not just the spending for the club for which they won the title. 

If you want transfer spend efficiency, Sir Alex Ferguson is your man. Seven Premier League titles since the year 2000, each of them costing just €95m. On that alone, you would have to say that it was money well spent.

52 players walked through the doors at the Theatre of Dreams from the year 2000 to his retirement, each of those 52 cost a little more than €12m on average and when you look at the figure of €95m per title, it is small change when compared to the other nine managers in the list.

Carlo Ancelotti is second in the list and although many may forget that he was the Everton manager for a short amount of time, his expenditure there has driven up the efficiency that came with winning the Premier League as Chelsea boss.

His per Premier League title figure now stands at €225m for the one and only crown he delivered to Stamford Bridge. That is just over €80m less than that of Pep Guardiola but if he does lead Manchester City to another league title in May, his per title figure will shrink to €246m instead. 

Four titles for Guradiola and just one for Roberto Mancini in fourth. The former Manchester City manager spent a total of €344m during his own time at the Etihad, as 18 players finally got the club to the holy grail.

While Leicester certainly won the holy grail in 2016 under Claudio Ranieri. The wily old Italian may have managed three other Premier League clubs since the year 2000 and this means his own per title expenditure comes in at €379m. 

Ranieri and Leicester City - EPL trophy delivered - Peter Woodentop, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Still some way cheaper than that of Arsene Wenger in sixth. The former Arsenal boss delivered Premier League titles in both 2002 and 2004 during the duration of our data sample and the two of those were worth €445m each.

Just €1m less than that of Jose Mourinho and had the Portuguese icon not taken spells with both Manchester United and Tottenham, his own average title cost of €446m would certainly be lower than it currently is.

Talking of not taking spells at Tottenham, Antonio Conte probably wishes he had not bothered as his per title average figure has swelled to €597.4m and by comparison, this is €18m more than Manuel Pellegrini’s success at Manchester City and stop off as West Ham manager.

There has been no stop-offs for Jurgen Klopp, though, €716.5m spent and 1 Premier League title. It may seem like a lot of money, but it is also fair to say that ending Liverpool’s title drought of 30-plus years was almost priceless.

Summary

Premier League football managers have spent vast amounts of money on players since the turn of the millennium. The reasons differ depending on where they sit in the table. 

The board members who release the funds are under pressure to spend more frequently as the cost of Premier League success becomes more expensive. 

The highest-spending Premier League manager since 2000 is José Mourinho, followed by Pep Guardiola and Arsène Wenger respectively. 

The best measure of value is how much it cost each Premier League winning manager to win a title. Sir Alex Ferguson is the most efficient, with seven titles costing €95m each.

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