Manchester United have spent over £1.3BN in 10 years - and have won just FOUR trophies

Manchester United have lost a mammoth £909million in net transfer spending over the past 10 years - the biggest amongst any team in the world - a new study has found.

The Red Devils, according to the CIES Football Observatory, have spent more than £1.3billion on players since the summer of 2012, taking in £397m in sales, and have won just four major trophies in that time and none since 2017.

The study also shows the Premier League's financial dominance across Europe, with six of the top 10 teams  in terms of expenditure from England. The figures also show Everton and Aston Villa have recorded bigger losses than Chelsea and Liverpool with far inferior results to show for it.

Focusing on the Premier League aspect of the study solely at first, Man City are behind their neighbours United in second place - both in England and Europe - for their losses from transfers, recording a loss of £832m.

Yet in that time City have won an impressive 11 trophies, nearly three times as many as United.

United have spent big on the likes of Paul Pogba, Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho and Fred in that time.

Arsenal are, perhaps surprisingly, third in the list for English sides with a loss of £492m, but are on the same amount of trophies won as United with four.

Then come Everton and Aston Villa - with stunning losses of £362m and £358m respectively - ahead of Chelsea, who've won six trophies (including two Premier League titles and the Champions League), who have made a loss of £349m.

West Ham, who have also not won a major trophy but are in the Europa League knockout-stages this season, are seventh ahead of Liverpool, who've recorded a loss of £293m for their two trophies, the 2019 Champions League and 2019-20 Premier League title.

A huge chunk of that was aided by the £105m (plus £37m in bonuses) sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in January 2018.

Newcastle and Tottenham complete the top 10 - both recording losses of over £280m - while Leicester City (who have won the Premier League and FA Cup) are only 12th on the list, with a negative balance of £232m.

At the other end of the English table, Southampton have made a loss of only £51m and Norwich have the second-best record with a transfer loss of just £3.3m.

Yet Brentford are the only current Premier League side who have made money from transfers in the last 10 years - a total of £36million.

Meanwhile in Europe, PSG complete the top three behind the two Manchester clubs in terms of overall losses on transfers - a total of £796m.

This includes £198m spent in football's world record transfer in 2017 for Neymar from Barcelona, and the signing of Kylian Mbappe from Monaco at a reported £163m a year later.

Barcelona are fourth - having spent big on the likes of Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann and Coutinho - while behind Arsenal in fifth are Juventus, who won nine Serie A titles in a row before Inter's triumph last season.

Italian rivals AC Milan are seventh with a loss of £365m, with neighbours Inter 11th.

At the other end of the spectrum, reigning Ligue 1 champions Lille have made the most money from transfers in the past 10 years, recording an impressive positive figure of £295m.

Lyon are second with £208m and Serie A side Genoa on £169m.

The CIES Football Observatory is a research group created in 2005 within the Swiss-based Centre International d’Étude du Sport (CIES). It specialises in the statistical analysis of football, in particular in the areas of demographics, transfer values and performance.

Gathered with the greatest care through the cross-checking of all possible sources, whether official or unofficial, the data includes eventual add-on fees included in the deals, regardless of their actual payment. Within the limits of available information, incomes deriving from sell-on fees are also taken into account.