If you thought there has been an increase in Premier League-to-Premier League transfers, you could be forgiven.

This summer, there have been numerous Premier League players who have moved clubs within England’s top flight, but the sense that intra-Premier League transfers are increasing is only a fallacy.

At the time of writing, these moves have only accounted for 25 per cent of Premier League arrivals (excluding loans) in the current transfer window, which is equal to the lowest rate in the last five summers.

However, that feeling is probably related to the magnitude of those signings. Noni Madueke swapped Chelsea for Arsenal, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha joined Manchester United from Brentford and Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Newcastle United signed Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest.

Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur snapped up Mohammed Kudus from West Ham United, and Chelsea added Brighton & Hove Albion’s Joao Pedro and Ipswich Town’s Liam Delap to their squad.

Moves towards the Premier League’s historic ‘Big Six’ will generate the biggest noise, and in addition to the above, Milos Kerkez, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Christian Norgaard’s transfers to Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal respectively empowers another theory: wealthier Premier League teams are harvesting talent from up and down the table.

Despite moves between Premier League teams being just below the average of the usual rate, a big portion of these transfers have been ‘Big Six’ signings from the rest of the league.

By the ‘Big Six’ in this context, we mean the richest clubs since 2010: Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea, who were joined by Manchester City after Abu Dhabi United Group took over the club in 2008, and Tottenham who benefited from Champions League money for the first time in 2010.

This summer transfer window, 39 per cent of Premier League-to-Premier League moves have been the ‘Big Six’ acquiring players from the rest of the league — the highest share since 2010.

The above isn’t simply because ‘Big Six’ clubs are buying more players in general.

Between 2015 and 2019, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City focused on buying talent from abroad, with the percentage of their summer signings (excluding loans) from the rest of the Premier League never exceeding 15 per cent.

Purchases such as Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah, Son Heung-min, William Saliba and Jorginho proved to be worth their money. During that period, the upcoming talent in European teams were more lucrative than those at non-‘Big Six’ clubs.

However, that has been changing in recent years, with ‘Big Six’ teams focusing more on signings from the rest of the Premier League. This summer, 27 per cent of the ‘Big Six’s signings have been from the rest of the league — the highest share since 2010.

The Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ are buying more from the rest of the league, and there are a couple of reasons behind this trend.

The launch of the elite player performance plan (EPPP) by the Premier League in 2012 has helped English academies produce better talents. “We needed to see a step change,” Neil Saunders, the Premier League’s director of football, who was an academy programme manager when the EPPP was introduced, told The Athletic in June.

“The EPPP was born out of a backdrop of a perception that English players — and players coming through our system — weren’t technically as advanced or tactically as astute as some of our European counterparts.”

Delap’s switch from Ipswich to Chelsea follows in the footsteps of Dominic Solanke’s move from Bournemouth to Tottenham last summer and Declan Rice’s transfer from West Ham to Arsenal in 2023 — well-developed homegrown talent is ending up at ‘Big Six’ clubs.

The spending power of these teams allows them to do that, which brings us to the second point: the Premier League’s crazy money.

According to UEFA’s latest annual European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report, which is based on the audited accounts for 2023 from 745 top-flight clubs in UEFA’s 55 member associations, the Premier League’s aggregate revenue (€7.1billion) is almost as much as the second and third highest earning leagues, La Liga and Bundesliga, combined.

It is why upcoming players at non-‘Big Six’ clubs usually stay in the Premier League, where the top-earning teams can offer larger transfer fees and higher salaries. The gap in TV revenue is part of the equation, with the Premier League’s latest domestic four-year deal starting from the 2025-26 season collectively valued at £6.7bn.

The jump in TV revenue since the 2016-2019 cycle — £5.1bn from domestic rights compared with £3bn in the previous three-year cycle — empowered the league’s spending power and allowed non-‘Big Six’ teams to venture into Europe and sign players such as Youri Tielemans (Monaco to Leicester City in 2019) and Amadou Onana (Lille to Everton in 2022).

In the three-summer cycle (2016, 2017 and 2018) corresponding to the improved TV deal, the rate of signings from outside United Kingdom and Ireland for non-‘Big Six’ teams increased to 51 per cent, before dropping to 46 per cent between 2019 and 2022, and going back to 51 per cent during the 2022-2025 TV cycle.

Since 2016, non-‘Big Six’ teams have been signing players from Europe’s biggest leagues with France leading the way with 72 arrivals in the Premier League, followed by Spain (60), Germany (59) and Italy (43).

Unearthing talent from the second divisions of these leagues may reap rewards, but the Premier League’s non-‘Big Six’ teams are signing straight from the top with Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1 comprising 51 per cent of their summer signings since 2016.

Wolves signed Cunha from Atletico Madrid on loan with an obligation to buy the forward in the summer of 2023, before selling him to Manchester United in June 2025. Another example is Marc Cucurella, who joined Brighton from Getafe in the summer of 2021 and was bought by Chelsea the following year.

Additionally, the Premier League clubs with the lowest transfer-weighted average age of signings since 2016 have been Brighton and Brentford, who are looking to find young potential talents from different markets before selling them higher up the ladder in the league.

Brighton’s list is a long one, with Joao Pedro and Cucurella joined by Yves Bissouma, Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister — although the latter two were winter signings. Meanwhile, Brentford have David Raya and Mbeumo to boast their smart approach in the transfer market.

Looking at which non-‘Big Six’ teams buy the most players from abroad, Brighton are only in third place with 74 per cent of their summer signings (excluding loans) since 2016 coming from outside the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Sitting above them are Leeds United (75 per cent) who have signed six players from overseas markets this summer, and Wolves (81 per cent) who have focused on bringing in Portuguese players since their promotion to the Premier League in 2018.

Players joining these clubs are increasingly having clauses in their contracts that allow ‘Big Six’ teams to sign them at a certain price, whether that’s a release clause or a relegation one.

Even if it’s a hefty fee, the spending power of the ‘Big Six’ clubs means that they are capable of matching the required amount. Instead of searching for an equivalent and cheaper prospect in an untapped market, ‘Big Six’ clubs have the luxury of paying a ‘Premier League premium’ to get a player who has proved himself in the league and adapted to the lifestyle in England.

“You watch Matheus (Cunha) every weekend doing things against the players that you are going to face,” said Manchester United’s head coach, Ruben Amorim, last month. “That can help you to have more certainty when you choose players.”

Developing better players through the English academies alongside the non-‘Big Six’ clubs’ ability to attract talent from abroad has made the Premier League the perfect market for the wealthier ‘Big Six’.

Summer 2025 is the reaping season in the Premier League.