Liverpool, Chelsea and City rank rock bottom for adding the most value to their players...but how does your club rate?



Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City waste the most money in the Barclays Premier League, while Arsenal and Tottenham are the League's smartest spenders.

They are the findings of the analysts at Swiss research centre the Football Observatory, who have ranked each club's current value in comparison to the fees spent and also shown how much money it has taken for each team to amass their points total.



The fascinating tables reveal some difficult home truths for a number of over-spending chairman but also goes a way to justifying the frugality of certain clubs.



Over-spending: Liverpool and Manchester City have lost millions of pounds on the value of the players in their squads. City are the worst offenders with a squad worth more than £40m less than what they paid



Good value: Players like Santi Cazorla, who were bought cheaply and whose value has increased, have propelled Arsenal to the top of this table

The fees are calculated by the money spent on all players who played for their respective club last season - not just players who were bought in the 2012-13 transfer windows.

Arsenal's strategy of buying cheap, young players has paid off according to this table, with the current squad worth more than £100million more today than the fees that were paid.

Manchester City have been proven to be financing the least valuable deals, by either over-paying for players in the first instance or buying players whose value has decreased due to age, injury or performance.

The value of their squad is now worth £43m less than the fees that have been paid.

Chelsea (-£25m) and Liverpool (-£14m) are the next two worst offenders, but champions Manchester United have struck the perfect formula.

They have proved sustained success and trophies can be won while buying on the relatively cheap side, their squad is worth £67m more than the fees that were paid.

Under valued: Robin van Persie, bought for just £24m, fired Manchester United to another Premier League title

Difference in value of players for Premier League clubs (all values in £m)

CLUB FEES PAID CURRENT VALUE DIFFERENCE Arsenal 167.66 268.87 101.21 Tottenham Hotspur 151.39 226.24 74.85 Manchester United 291.72 358.79 67.07 Newcastle United 80.86 124.96 44.10 Everton 73.55 114.18 40.64 Swansea 26.69 66.54 39.85 Southampton 43.69 76.40 32.71 Norwich 21.38 48.13 26.75 West Ham 36.10 62.50 26.40 Reading 15.50 36.01 20.51 West Brom 25.84 44.39 18.55 Aston Villa 90.04 91.20 1.16 Wigan Athletic 41.96 37.23 -4.72 Queens Park Rangers 66.58 58.99 -7.58 Stoke 70.21 60.71 -9.50 Sunderland 88.57 77.95 -10.62 Fulham 44.37 33.70 -10.67 Liverpool 225.85 211.73

-14.12 Chelsea 369.75 344.20 -25.55 Manchester City 375.74 332.56 -43.18



Precious: Bryan Ruiz is worth roughly a quarter of the value of Fulham's whole squad

What a waste: QPR spent £2.66m per point last season to amass a total of just 25 points and finish bottom

How much each team spent per point (value in £m)

CLUB POINTS 2012-13

FEES PAID COST PER POINT Chelsea 75 369.75 4.93 Manchester City 78 375.74 4.82 Liverpool 61 225.85 3.70 Manchester United 89 291.72 3.28 Queens Park Rangers 25 66.58 2.66 Arsenal 73 167.66 2.30 Sunderland 39 88.57 2.27 Aston Villa 41 90.04 2.20 Tottenham Hotspur 72 151.39 2.10 Newcastle 41 80.86 1.97 Stoke 42 70.21 1.67 Everton 63 73.55 1.17 Wigan Athletic

36 41.96 1.17 Southampton 41 43.69 1.07 Fulham 43 44.37 1.03 West Ham 46 36.10 0.78 Swansea 46 26.69 0.85 Reading 28 15.50 0.55 West Brom

49 25.84 0.53 Norwich 44 21.38 0.49



Opposite ends: Chelsea spent nearly £5m for every point they won in last season's Premier League, whereas Norwich spent less than half a million pounds per point as they finished 11th

Fulham are 17th in the table, losing more than £10m in value, but they also have the least valuable squad in the league.

Their band of cheap foreign imports, loan deals and short-term contracts is worth just over £33m. In fact one player, Costa Rican attacking midfielder Bryan Ruiz, is worth roughly a quarter of that total. Manchester United's squad is the most valuable, worth a staggering £358m.

And it is Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea that also come top of the cost of each Premier League point.

For every point Chelsea won last season it cost them a whopping £4.93m to earn it. City's 78 points cost them a whopping £4.82m each and Liverpool £3.7m.

United were fourth in this table, at £3.28m for each of the 89 points that won, but nobody at Old Trafford will probably mind too much considering Sir Alex Ferguson ran away with the title in his last season in charge.

Great strategy: Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United proved you can earn sustained success while buying players under market value

At the bottom of the table five clubs, Norwich, West Brom, Reading, Swansea and West Ham all spent less than £1m for their points haul.



And with Reading the only relegated team out of that group, the respective chairman can be very pleased with their season's work.

To rub more salt into Tony Fernandes' wounds, Queens Park Rangers were relegated after ending up fifth in the cost-per-point table.

Their paltry sum of 25 points, a total good enough only to prop up the rest of the League, was assembled with for £2.66m per point - and this table doesn't include wages.

Different approaches: David Gold and West Ham consolidated in the Premier League following promotion despite spending half the amount that Tony Fernandes did to assemble his QPR squad

