Stats: Which Premier League club had the best Net Spend in both transfer windows in 2017/18?

Another transfer window has come and gone and it was quite an eventful one at that - especially in the Premier League. It's been ages since football fans have seen so much activity in the winter transfer window.

January is usually a quiet month - at least until Deadline Day. But even then, such transfer activity is unprecedented.

One explanation for the flurry of activity off the pitch in the last 31 days could be attributed to the quadrennial event set to take place in Russia in June - the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Players looking for more game time in a bid to be fit and ready for selection has seen them make decisions to leave clubs for opportunities afforded elsewhere.

Many clubs have also decided to get rid of any deadwood in the squad to make way for signings that will help them with their ambitions.

So which clubs have done good business over the course of two transfer windows? The summer transfer window saw many clubs rebuilding their squads and the winter transfer window saw them add value to their squads - especially the top clubs.

Manchester City triggered Aymeric Laporte's release clause in January

Manchester City have shown that they are not afraid to dig into their deep pockets to find the right players for their squad. In all, they spent £282.7m in the summer and winter transfer windows combined.

A lot of their outlay was on reinforcing the defence with £58.5m spent on acquiring the services of Aymeric Laporte, £51.75m on Benjamin Mendy, and £45.9m on Kyle Walker.

Bernardo Silva (£45m), goalkeeper Ederson (£36m), and Danilo (£27m) were the other big signings who came last summer. However, they also managed to offload 11 players for a total of £91m - the biggest of which was Kelechi Iheanacho (£24m).

Other sales included Enes Unal, Wilfried Bony, Aaron Mooy, Nolito, Aleksandar Kolarov, Fernando, and Samir Nasri.

Chelsea also spent over £200m in all - £236m to be exact. Their biggest signings were Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Antonio Rudiger, and Davide Zappacosta in the summer. In January, they reinforced the squad with Olivier Giroud, Ross Barkley, and Emerson.

Olivier Giroud crossed the London divide to sign for Chelsea

However, despite spending so much, their net spend is only £68m thanks to the sales of Diego Costa, Nemanja Matic, Nathan Ake, Juan Cuadrado, Asmir Begovic, Bertrand Traore, Nathaniel Chalobah, and Christian Atsu. The Blues don't just simply spend big anymore unless they get value for money and also look to balance the books.

Premier League clubs' transfer spending for 2017/18

One club that probably had the best January transfer window was Arsenal. The Gunners managed to offload Alexis Sanchez (who would have been free this summer) and sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan in a player-swap deal the likes of which we've rarely ever seen before. The fact that it did not involve a transfer fee probably made it a win-win for both clubs.

However, despite spending over £100m on two strikers - Alexandre Lacazette (£48m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£58m), the north London club still made a profit! The only other signings were Sead Kolasinac (free) and young defender Konstantinos Mavropanos (approximately £0.5m).

Alexis Sanchez and Henrikh Mkhitaryan swapped clubs

Despite spending £106.7m The sales of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Giroud, Francis Coquelin, Wojciech Szczesny, Gabriel, and Kieran Gibbs saw Arsenal receive £114.2m which put their net spend in the green.

Everton were also big spenders as they did a complete squad overhaul. Gylfi Sigurdsson, Michael Keane, Jordan Pickford, Davy Klaassen, Walcott, Cenk Tosun, Nikola Vlasic, Henry Onyekuru and Sandro Ramirez all came in over the two windows.

But the Toffees also sold Romelu Lukaku, Barkley, Gerard Deulofeu, Tom Cleverley, and Gareth Barry. The Lukaku sale alone (£76.23m) allowed them to spend on many players.

Manchester Untied's biggest coup was probably signing Alexis Sanchez for free with Mkhitaryan going the other way but they also spent a total of £145.8m on three players - Lukaku, Matic, and Victor Lindelof. The only reason their net spend is high is because they only managed to offload Adnan Januzaj for a high fee while many youngsters were loaned out.

Liverpool made Virgil van Dijk the most expensive defender in the world worth £75m

Other big spenders were Liverpool. The record sale of Philippe Coutinho (£142m including add-ons) and Mamadou Sakho allowed the Anfield side to break their club record for Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Andre Robertson. It was definitely Moneyball at work as the Reds' net spend came up to just £10m!

Tottenham Hotspur had their spending restricted due to the financial burden of the renovation of White Hart Lane but they still did some business. The sale of Walker, Kevin Wimmer, Nabil Bentaleb, and Clinton N'Jie saw them spend on Davinson Sanchez, Lucas Moura, Serge Aurier, Fernando Llorente, and Juan Foyth - bringing their net spend to £14.8m.

In all, five clubs made a profit over the last two transfer windows - Arsenal, West Ham, Burnley, Swansea City, and Southampton - the latter two making profits in excess of £30m.

Stats courtesy of SportingIntel and TransferMarkt.