Premier League PSR - How Much Money Does Each Club Have Left?

01 Sep, 2025

Premier League PSR – How Much Money Does Each Club Have Left?

Our resident FM expert gives an an in-depth breakdown of Premier League teams PSR situation. He takes you through PSR rules, summer spending, remaining PSR headroom, why a record breaking summer of expenditure did not break PSR and more!

Transfer deadline day: the only day where someone drops £25m on a full-back after they’ve only seen on a two-minute YouTube compilation. But behind the chaos, there’s a quieter story. Premier League clubs are balancing transfer ambition with strict Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), trying to avoid the points deductions we’ve seen handed out in recent seasons. And somehow, in the middle of all this, we’ve just had a record-breaking summer for spending. So how did we get here, who’s safe, who’s teetering on the edge, and how much headroom does each club actually have left? Let’s break it down properly.

The rules

PSR looks at a club’s finances over a rolling three-year period. Losses across those three years must stay within £105m if owners inject equity to cover part of them, which works out to about £35m per season.There are carve-outs: money spent on stadium upgrades, youth academies, women’s football, and community projects doesn’t count towards the cap. That’s why Tottenham can spend on their stadium without breaching PSR and why Everton’s new ground isn’t included either.

Clubs with seasons in the Championship have lower limits because the EFL only allows £39m of losses over three years. Leicester, for example, had a reduced £83m cap in 2024.By January 2025, every Premier League club passed the PSR test for the 2021–2024 cycle, so we’re now in a new one covering 2022–2025 and beyond.

Why net spend isn’t the same as PSR headroom

We all love Sky’s transfer ticker, but PSR is based on accounting principles, not headline fees. A £100m signing on a five-year deal isn’t £100m straight into the accounts. It’s £20m per season in amortisation. Wages, agent fees and bonuses are added on top.Player sales are often booked as immediate profit if the player was homegrown or fully amortised, which is why so many transfers go through before the 30 June accounting deadline each year.

This summer’s transfer spending

The Premier League smashed through £2.6bn in gross spending this summer. Here’s the verified net spend for each club (fees in minus fees out):

Arsenal: £254m
Manchester United: £170.5m
Newcastle: £165.6m
Tottenham: £137.8m
Everton: £116m
Sunderland: £110.9m
Liverpool: £110m
Leeds: £91.5m
West Ham: £70.6m
Manchester City: £66.3m
Burnley: £57.8m
Nottingham Forest: £53.5m
Chelsea: £9.5m
Brentford: –£3.9m (net profit)
Aston Villa: –£8m
Fulham: –£9.6m
Wolves: –£38.7m
Crystal Palace: –£44m
Brighton: –£46.15m
Bournemouth: –£76.3m

It’s a reminder that record spending doesn’t always mean record losses. Sales, amortisation, and carve-outs matter far more than the headline figures.

Estimated PSR headroom for each club:

Here’s a rough approximation of how much financial breathing space each club had left after the summer window, factoring in three-year losses, carve-outs, and this summer’s activity. These are rounded estimates:

Manchester City: £200m+ headroom
Brighton: £100m+ headroom
Tottenham: £100m+ headroom
Chelsea: £80–100m headroom (boosted by one-off internal deals)
Liverpool: £50–75m headroom
West Ham: £50m headroom
Arsenal: £40m headroom
Manchester United: £40m headroom
Brentford: £60m headroom
Crystal Palace: £25–30m headroom
Bournemouth: £25m headroom
Sunderland: £20m headroom
Fulham: £20m headroom
Newcastle: £10m headroom
Wolves: £5m headroom
Nottingham Forest: ~£5m headroom
Leeds United: ~£0–5m headroom
Aston Villa: ~£0 headroom
Everton: ~£0 headroom
Burnley: ~£0 headroom

Who’s sitting comfortably:

Manchester City made profits across the last two years, have the highest revenues in the league and only mid-table net spend this summer. Their buffer is enormous.
Tottenham benefit from stadium costs being excluded and have rising revenues. Their PSR limit is huge.
Brighton and Brentford continue to trade brilliantly, selling players at peak value and reinvesting smartly. Both posted net transfer profits this summer and have plenty of space left.
West Ham still benefit from the accounting profit on Declan Rice’s £100m move and European prize money.

Who’s walking the tightrope:

Everton have already had points deductions in the past two seasons. They sold players to stay compliant but then spent aggressively this summer. Their margin is slim.
Nottingham Forest swung from losses to a £10m profit in 2024 after selling Brennan Johnson, but a £53.5m net spend this summer means careful wage and amortisation management is needed.Newcastle sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh to scrape through the last cycle, then spent £197.6m this summer. Champions League revenue helps, but the buffer isn’t big.Aston Villa had to sell before the 2024 deadline to comply. This summer they made a small net profit and kept wages in check, but there’s no real margin for error.

Why a record window didn’t break PSR:

Two main reasons:

Lots of clubs also sold heavily. Bournemouth sold £197.3m worth of players. Brighton, Palace and Wolves posted big net profits this summer too.
Transfer costs are spread over the length of contracts, so the real PSR impact lands over several seasons, not in one go.

Where clubs stand now:

Well inside limits: Brighton, Brentford, Palace, Bournemouth, Wolves – thanks to big sales and smart trading.
Big spenders but compliant: Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Newcastle, City, Spurs – revenues, amortisation schedules and owner support keep them safe.
On the edge: Everton, Forest, Burnley, Villa, Leeds – they’re running on tight margins and heavy reliance on outgoing sales.

Final thoughts:

Love it or hate it, PSR isn’t there to stop spending. It’s there to make clubs pace themselves and balance the books over time. Although this definitely seems to benefit some clubs more than others.That’s why you can have a £2.6bn summer window and still see every club technically stay within the rules. But for a few of them, that line is now paper-thin.

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William Reid

William Reid is the admin of Out of Context Football Manager, an X account dedicated to all things FM. A former Social Editor at LADbible Group, he now brings his deep knowledge of the game to Ingenuity Connect as our resident fantasy football expert.