From Barcelona's acquisition of Valencia's Jordi Alba, to Antonio Cassano's move across Milan to Inter, and the big spending of PSG and Zenit St Petersburg, it has been a busy summer

The English transfer window closed on Friday night but clubs around Europe have been able to carry on shopping this week, with the deadline in France on Tuesday night and Turkey 24 hours later. Here is a round-up of the biggest transfers in the main leagues over the summer.

Spain

As usual, Barcelona and Real Madrid were the most spendthrift clubs. On the one hand, Barça knew from the beginning what they had to do in the transfer window and apparently did a good bargain strengthening the left-back with Jordi Alba from Valencia for £11.2m after Eric Abidal's liver illness. Then, they wanted a defensive midfielder, but after Seydou Keita's departure for China, Alex Song joined the side from Arsenal for £15m to replace him, but also to perform as eventual centre-back, just as Yaya Touré use to do. Ibrahim Afellay left for Schalke on loan at the last minute just to make way for youngsters Cristian Tello, Isaac Cuenca and Gerard Deulofeu and for David Villa's return.

On the other hand, Real Madrid seemed to act a little more randomly. They wanted a creative midfielder, but it wasn't until late July that they started to negotiate over Tottenham Hotspur's Luka Modric, for whom they paid £33m. During the dying hours of the transfer window Madrid made an apparently good exchange by sending Lass to Roberto Carlos's Anzhi and getting Michael Essien from Chelsea on loan.

Other remarkable movements in the Spanish transfer market were the sale of Athletic Bilbao's Javi Martínez to Bayern Munich for over £30m, the arrivals of Emre Belozoglu to Atlético Madrid, of Theofanis Gekas to Levante and of Simão Sabrosa to Espanyol, the loans of Arsenal's Joel Campbell and Park Chu-young to Betis and Celta, respectively, or the buy of Lyon's Aly Cissokho by Valencia in order to replace Alba.

Italy

The big teams have been quite active this last summer. But none of them paid huge transfer fees. Juventus and Internazionale appear once again as the main title contenders, above Milan. La Vecchia Signora added Nicklas Bendtner on loan after failing to buy Dimitar Berbatov from Manchester United. The return of the talented Sebastian Giovinco, the arrival of Lúcio, who had been released by Inter, and the hiring of Rubinho as back-up goalkeeper are the other remarkable movements made by Juventus, who have lost their legendary striker Alessandro Del Piero, now playing in Australia. The Nerazzurri added to their roster the controversial forward Antonio Cassano from Milan, Napoli's Walter Gargano and the Slovenian keeper Samir Handanovic from Udinese, who is to replace Júlio César, now with Queens Park Rangers. Maicon left the club for Manchester City for about £3m.

Milan may have lost a lot of quality. Getting Giampaolo Pazzini in exchange for Cassano wasn't such a bad trade, but the arrivals of Bojan Krkic on loan, Cristian Zapata and Francesco Acerbi do not make up for the departures of Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic for Paris Saint-Germain. However, the Rossoneri strengthened their midfield with Nigel de Jong and Riccardo Montolivo, probably their best addition to the squad. Fiorentina are another team that have been quite active this summer. The Viola are expected to make a big impact despite the loss of Montolivo, thanks to the arrivals of Villarreal's Gonzalo Rodríguez and Borja Valero, Boca Juniors' Facundo Roncaglia and Alberto Aquilani from Milan, among others. The experienced target man Luca Toni also joined the team.

Other outstanding movements are the arrival of the Greek Sotiris Ninis at Parma from Panathinaikos and of Lyon's Ederson at Lazio. The loan of Marco Borriello to Genoa from Roma was also notable.

Germany

Bayern Munich just feel the need to win the Bundesliga title again, after two years being subjugated by an efficient Borussia Dortmund side, and because of that splashed their cash in this transfer window. Late on the Bavarians added the Spaniard Javi Martínez for nearly £40m from Bilbao. Before him, they already had armed a fearsome team with the additions of the Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic, from Wolfsburg for about £11m, The Swiss midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri came from Basel for £10m and the Brazilian defender Dante Costa for £4m from Borussia Mönchengladbach. Claudio Pizarro returns to Munich as a back-up striker on a free transfer from Werder Bremen. Mitchell Weiser and Tom Starke also joined Bayern. Ivica Olic, who went to Wolfsburg, Danijel Pranjic departed for Sporting Lisbon, while the defender Breno, has also left after being sentenced to nearly four years in jail for arson.

Dortmund made their biggest investment in Marco Reus, for whom they paid £15m, Leonardo Bittencourt, Julian Schieber and Oliver Kirch also joined the team. Mönchengladbach spent nearly £30m on Alvaro Domínguez from Atlético Madrid, Basel's Granit Xhata, Peniel Mlapa from Hoffenheim, Twente's Luuk de Jong and the Swede Branimir Hrgota from Jonkoping. Wolfsburg made some good moves, buying Naldo from Werder, Fragner Lemos from Vasco de Gama, Heerenveen's Bas Dost and, specially, Ivica Olic from Bayern Munich on a free transfer.

Schalke have taken Ibrahim Afellay from Barcelona on loan and they also picked up the Swiss Tranquillo Barnetta from Bayer Leverkusen. Rafael van der Vaart from Tottenham and Milan Badelj from Dinamo Zagreb have strengthened Hamburg.

France

Paris Saint-Germain were the sensations of the transfer window in Europe. The money from Qatar made them build a very powerful team. PSG have bought Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva from Milan for a combined £60m, the Argentinian forward Ezequiel Lavezzi from Napoli for £30m, the Holland right-back Gregory van der Wiel from Ajax for £5m and the Italian deep-lying playmaker Marco Verratti from Pescara for £10m.

Lyon are always title contenders, but they did not replace the world-class goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who left for Tottenham, which means they must rely on Rémy Vercoutre as the starting goalkeeper. The Serbian defender Milan Bisevac from PSG and the experienced midfielder Steed Malbranque from neighbouring Saint-Etienne are their most notable signings.

Montpellier, the Ligue 1 champions, added the Argentinian striker Emanuel Herrera, the winger Anthony Mounier, the midfielder Gaetan Charbonnier and the defender Daniel Congre without paying any high fees. The arrival of Chelsea's Salomon Kalou at Lille is another interesting addition to Ligue 1.

Russia

Zenit Saint Petersburg had almost the same impact during this transfer window's last days as PSG did in July. The Russian Premier League title holders strengthened their squad significantly in order to defend their domestic crown and to make it to the final rounds of the Champions League, spending £65m on Porto's Brazilian star Hulk and Benfica's Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel.

CSKA Moscow added the Brazilian defender Mario Fernandes, in whom Barcelona and Real Madrid had shown interest, from Grêmio and the Sweden midfielder Rasmus Elm from AZ Alkmaar. Spartak Moscow, who finished second last season, added the Argentinian defender Juan Manuel Insaurralde from Boca Juniors, the Brazilian deep-lying playmaker Romulo Borges from Grêmio, for about £6m, and the creative midfielders José Antonio Jurado and Kim Kallstrom, from Schalke and Lyon, respectively.

Anzhi Makhachkala, one of the richest clubs in the world, have been much less active than last year, when they bought Samuel Eto'o, but the Ivorian Lacina Traoré from Russian rivals Kuban, for about £15m, the Brazilian Ewerton Almeida from Corinthians and Real Madrid's Lassana Diarra are meant to be solid signings for the team.

Other countries

In Portugal, Porto, the champions, replaced Hulk with the Colombian goalscorer Jackson Martínez from Jaguares; Benfica's most outstanding moves to replace Witsel and Javi García are Ernesto Cornejo from Barcelona's youth team and the Brazilian striker Rodrigo Lima from Braga. The acquisitions of Khalid Boulahrouz, Gelson Fernandes, Daniel Pranjic and the Argentinians Marco Rojo and Martin Viola make Sporting very solid title contenders.

Ajax will try to defend their Dutch title without Van der Wiel, Jan Vertonghen (Spurs) and Mounir El Hamdaoui (Fiorentina), but with Tobias Sana, Niklas Moisander and Christian Poulsen; Feyenoord have added Harmeet Singh, Lex Immens and could nab Joris Mathijsen from Málaga; Luciano Narsingh is PSV's best acquisition while Steven Berghius, Donny Gorter, Yves de Winter and Markus Henriksen have joined Alkmaar.

Greece has seen how the current champions' roster has changed, Olympiakos said farewell to most of their Spanish colony and welcomed a lot of new players such as Roma's Leandro Greco, Toulouse's Paulo Machado, Pablo Contreras from Colo-Colo and, particularly, Vasssilis Karagounis from Udinese. Their main rivals, Panathinaikos, lost Ninis, but got Bruno Fornaroli, from Sampdoria, Quincy Owusu-Abeyie and Pape Habib Sow.