Transfer deadline day 2026: How does January transfer window compare and what deals could still be done?

With transfer deadline day approaching, how does the January window compare to previous years and what could still happen before Monday's 19:00 GMT deadline?

The current Premier League spending sits at £325m, down from £421m in 2025 - but there's a good chance we might reach a similar final total with a busy deadline day expected.

January 2026 has seen a somewhat middling window. Of the traditional big six, only Manchester City and Tottenham have been active, spending £84m and £48m respectively.

Indeed, Antoine Semenyo's £63m switch from Bournemouth to City looks set to be comfortably the biggest deal done in the window.

City will be the biggest spenders for the second-consecutive January, having spent £188m 12 months ago on reinforcements that have had varying degrees of impact on the first-team. The £84m outlay on Semenyo and Marc Guehi edges them close to an eye-watering £450m spend in the last 12-month period.

Tottenham (£47.8m) and West Ham (£47m) follow next, the latter adding two centre-forwards to their ranks as they look to move out of the relegation zone.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea have so far chosen to sit this one out, and that's been a prevailing theme for that quartet in January of late; Arsenal and Liverpool have not signed anyone at all in winter for three seasons now, while United's capture of Patrick Dorgu (£27m in 2025) has been their only business over that same period.

Chelsea signed Mathis Amougou (£13.5m) last January, otherwise they have transitioned to relying solely on summer business, too.

The current January spend is way down from the January record set in 2023, when £815m was spent - largely powered by Chelsea, who accounted for £280m of this alone.

The number of deals is slightly down year-on-year, but the cost of the deals is up, from £4.7m last year to £5.3m this year. That was also reflected in the summer, when the average price per deal in the Premier League sat at £9m - comfortably the highest on record.

If summer and winter spending and combined, we're just short of £3.45bn - that's around £725m more than the previous record for a single season set in 2022/23. Make no mistake, the spending power across the breadth of the division has never been stronger.

What information can we glean from this? Well, January has always been deemed by some as the window of desperation, where clubs only seek to do business if they are in trouble.

In Europe, this window has broadly followed the pattern of last January. La Liga simply is not interested in this window; just £21.8m was spent by Spanish top-flight clubs in 2025, and this window is tracking to be even less.

The Bundesliga (£67m) and Ligue 1 (45.2m) have also seen relatively modest amounts spent. As it was in 2025, it is Italy's Serie A most willing to invest. Their spend is touching £150m, but the cold fact for Europe's other 'big five' is that the Premier League will spend more than the four of them combined, just as they had in the summer. A total of 10 Premier League teams have broken their transfer record in the 25/26 season, while another eight have recorded their record sale.

And for these leagues, player acquisition from them to the Premier League frees up the money to allow them to invest. While the English top flight's net spend for the summer was minus £1.3bn, the other four banked a £360m profit. The current European football trading model at the very top requires Premier League clubs to accept significant losses in order for their clubs to go into the market at anywhere near the same level.

Will this change any time soon?

The most likely threat to this status quo comes from Saudi Arabia. The Pro League has remained largely quiet in this window and indeed for the past 18 months, as they assess the lessons they learned from their debut market splurge in 2023. Too many big names chose to ride out their days collecting big money despite being long past their best, and the Saudi project has learned from this.

This summer, we can expect them to be a big threat to the Premier League for emerging talent as well as established stars.

Wolves have accepted an offer for striker Jorgen Strand Larsen, which is expected to accelerate Jean-Philippe Mateta's move to AC Milan.

Mateta's potential transfer looks likely to be the main one to keep an eye on.

The Crystal Palace striker has also been linked with Italian giants Juventus and Premier League sides Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Palace value Mateta at around £40m.

A proposed move to Tottenham for Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson did not come off recently, but a transfer away from Anfield could still happen.

Joshua Zirkzee is yet to feature for Manchester United under interim head coach Michael Carrick, meaning he could be on his way.

Napoli and Roma have both being linked with the forward.

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