Clubs promoted to the Premier League are instantly posed with a familiar question – recruit heavily and risk losing cohesion, or show faith in players and risk a lack of quality.
Last season’s Championship winners Coventry City had months to get their head round that issue.
Runners-up Ipswich Town could inform their summer strategy with the recent experience going up to and coming straight back down from the Premier League in 2024 and 2025.
However, Hull City had to plan for two eventualities and even as late as May 23rd they didn’t know which division they’d be playing in this term.
Thankfully they were presented with the welcome headache of building a team capable of competing in the top flight – one they seem to have dealt with well so far.
In the end they opted for extensive recruitment with 18 new faces arriving at the MKM Stadium.
The Sky Blues and the Tractor Boys did likewise.
Indeed Betway calculates between them the three promoted teams spent a record £481million, well in excess of the £371m forked out by Sunderland, Leeds and Burnley 12 months earlier.
Why? Because Betway claims recent history suggests it’s the best way to guarantee survival
Prior to Ipswich’s £190m splurge, Sunderland’s was the previous highest. They spent £161m last summer and stayed up.
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Here’s Betway’s figures of the top ten highest transfer spends after promotion.
1. Ipswich Town 2026/27 £190.57m TBC
2. Sunderland 2025/26 £161.63m Survived
3. Hull City 2026/27 £151.66m TBC
4. Nottingham Forest 2022/23 £140.71m Survived
5. Coventry City 2026/27 £138.67m TBC
6. Aston Villa 2019/20 £130.44m Survived
7. Leeds United 2020/21 £113.7m Survived
8. Burnley 2025/26 £112.67m Relegated
9. Ipswich Town 2024/25 £107.1m Relegated
10. Southampton 2018/19 £102.78m Relegated
Sunderland spent £161.63m following promotion in 2025, making them the most expensive promoted side in Premier League history at the time. They subsequently secured their top-flight status and qualified for Europe.
Nottingham Forest in 2023 (£140.71m), Aston Villa in 2020 (£130.44m) and Leeds United in 2021 (£113.70m) also survived after spending heavily in their first seasons back in the Premier League.
Indeed, no promoted club has been relegated after spending more than £113m in a summer, suggesting that significant investment can provide the foundations for survival.
However, the sample remains small, and the experiences of other clubs show that money alone cannot guarantee success.
Indeed Ipswich spent £107.10m following promotion in 2024, only to suffer relegation after collecting just 22 points in the 2024/25 campaign.
Their £190.57m outlay this summer is almost double that previous investment, making them the most expensive promoted side in Premier League history. Time will tell whether it’s been money well-spent.
Of course simply spending doesn’t guarantee safety, although in recent history the gap between the Championship and the top flight has seemed bigger, with so many promoted clubs going straight back down.
Sunderland and Leeds bucked that trend last season – and did it by spending big – with the Whites paying out around £100m for ten players and staying up reasonably comfortably.
So City really had little option but to spend big, give Sergej Jakirovic the tools to confound yet more doubters. Interestingly eight of last season’s stalwarts started the opening day win over Manchester United but the side will no doubt evolve in the coming months.
The point here is evolution is as expensive as revolution and it’s worth noting four clubs have previously spent more than £100m in a summer and still suffered relegation: Fulham, Southampton, Ipswich and Burnley.
Spending any less than £100m would surely have been inviting trouble.
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