NEWCASTLE, England — Last Wednesday, the English striker Andre Gray moved to Watford from Burnley. At 18.5 million pounds, or about $24 million, it was not the most expensive transfer this summer. It was hardly the most glamorous, and it is unlikely to be the most meaningful or memorable.

In its way, though, it was noteworthy. Gray’s move ensured that — for the second summer in a row — the 20 clubs of the Premier League had combined to spend more than a billion pounds in a single transfer window. Last year, the spree topped out at £1.194 billion. When Gray moved, the clubs still had three weeks remaining until this year’s deadline, on Aug. 31 — plenty of time to set a new benchmark.

On Friday, a couple of days after Gray pulled on his new jersey, the Premier League season opened. Arsenal rallied to beat visiting Leicester City, 4-3, having fallen behind twice. The next day, Liverpool traveled to Watford and drew, 3-3, conceding an equalizer that may or may not have been offside in the 95th minute. Hours later, Chelsea, last year’s champion, had two players sent off and lost at home to Burnley, whom many observers have tipped for relegation.

It was totally unpredictable, and yet eerily familiar. That sort of chaos, after all, is exactly what has turned the Premier League into the world’s most popular domestic soccer competition, a place where the unimaginable is not only possible, but practically compulsory. The opening salvos of the new season offered a vision of the Premier League as it likes to see itself: not just the world’s richest league, but its most richly entertaining.