As usual, big-money transfers have dominated this summer’s Premier League discussions, with Luis Suarez (Liverpool to Barcelona), Patrice Evra (Manchester United to Juventus) and Ashley Cole (Chelsea to Roma) some of the high-profile moves. However, in most cases, these are single player transfers (usually to foreign clubs) and there has been less talk of player transfers between Premier League teams.

Manchester City’s strategy of buying high-profile players from their direct rivals has paid off with a haul of two Premier League titles in the past three years. We wanted to see if other clubs had decided to follow this strategy, so we have examined the Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football data for all players that have been transferred from the clubs they played for during the 2013/4 English Premier League.

Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is a game which is similar to “Football Manager”, but applied to live football, where you manage your favourite club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. When fans play the game, the Beat Your Manager team can measure the popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the lineup.

So far, 78 players have been released, with 104 players transferred (sold, on loan) to a total of 71 clubs. Of those 104, 33 did not appear for their respective clubs last season and so did not register a Beat Your Manager! rating, leaving us with 71 players for which popularity data is available.

Burnley, Crawley Town and West Brom were the most active Premier League raiders this summer

Newly promoted Burnley, Premier League strugglers West Bromwich Albion and League One’s Crawley Town were the most active when it came to pilfering this summer’s Premier League cast-offs. All three clubs each bought three players from Premier League clubs, although with popularity ratings below 25 per cent for most of them, those fans are unlikely to be too concerned. Joleon Lescott is the most popular player to be recruited by the Baggies, with a 48 per cent rating from Manchester City fans last season.

Burnley have stated their desire to be still in the Premier League at the end of the season by acquiring Steven Reid, who leaves the Hawthorns but brings a top-flight experience and a reasonable 41 per cent approval from Albion fans.

Crawley Town have also bought players from three Premier League clubs (Hull City, West Ham United, Swansea City) this season, but their more meagre resources have meant that those buys (Conor Henderson, Raphael Spiegel, Gwion Edwards) were from the less popular end of the scale, barely registering with fans.

Are Liverpool trying out Manchester City’s strategy?

Thirteen clubs bought two players from other Premier League outfits this summer, with Liverpool and (surprise, surprise) Manchester City making the most high-profile acquisitions. Liverpool have followed up their title-run last season with a planned investment in new talent, raiding Southampton for their attacking talent in the shape of their highly popular striker Rickie Lambert (96 per cent) and attacking midfielder Adam Lallana (71 per cent). It is hard to see Southampton surviving such a loss, but this summer will show if new manager Ronald Koeman can absorb those losses.

Manchester City has looked south to London, carrying off Bacary Sagna from Arsenal (92 per cent popularity) and Frank Lampard from Chelsea (82 per cent popularity), substantially weakening those rivals in the process.
Stoke City also looked to London to snatch Fulham’s popular midfielder Steve Sidwell (69 per cent), but their foray north to Sunderland for Phil Bardsley is less likely to trouble Black Cats fans, as he only registered a 33 per cent rating last season.

Hull City have also stated their determination to stay in the top-flight, signing Norwich City’s popular midfielder Robert Snodgrass (65 per cent popularity with Canaries fans) and upgrading Jake Livermore’s loan spell with the Club to a permanent transfer, following his 54 per cent rating from City fans last season.

Bolton Wanderers, Cardiff City, Ipswich Town, Sheffield Wednesday and Wigan Athletic also all bought two Premier League players from last season, but as with Crawley Town, those buys were towards the bottom of the popularity-stakes barrel; Crystal Palace’s Dean Moxey the most popular player to move to a Championship Club, with a below-average rating of 43 per cent.

Most popular Transfer targets from other Premier League Clubs:

Most popular Transfer targets from other Premier League Clubs: