The money in football nowadays is obscene.

The sort of sums paid to players on a weekly basis are far above what many everyday workers can expect to earn over a period of years, while the sums paid just to sign them from another club can sometimes outweigh the cost of repairing damage after natural disasters.

Alas, we all love the beautiful game and, when other celebrity figures such as musicians and actors earn comparable salaries, it is unedifying to get on football players’ backs – after all, being a top level athlete commands real commitment and some pretty unsociable hours of work!

In no other country on the planet is the cash in as plentiful supply as England, with the Premier League utterly dominant in the transfer market when it comes to sheer financial strength.

And this is reflected in the CIES Football Observatory’s recent findings, with nine of the top 20 most expensively assembled first-team squads in any of Europe’s top five leagues found in the Prem.

So, which five are England’s most costly in terms of player fees?

5) Liverpool – £312m

Big money summer additions such as Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum have boosted Liverpool place in the pecking order. Although the Reds have only appeared in the Champions League once since the start of the 2010/11 season, their pulling power and significant commercial standing have allowed them to secure some pretty expensive transfers, with a vast quantity of their first choice starting XI having cost eight-figure sums

4) Arsenal – £334m

Arsenal sit fourth, with the Gunners’ somewhat less frugal approach to transfer over the course of the past few years having been notable. Indeed, since 2013 the London club have broken their transfer record for Mesut Ozil, paid a vast fee to secure Alexis Sanchez’s signature and during the summer just gone they moved late to secure Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez for in excess of £50m.

3) Chelsea – £421m

A brief dip out of the Champions League this season didn’t cost the Blues any of their key, and most valuable, players, with the London club instead bolstering their ranks further with the additions of David Luiz, Michy Batshuayi, N’Golo Kante and Marcos Alonso for over £100m.

2) Manchester City – £535m

It’s no surprise that Manchester City are so far up the CIES’s rankings nowadays, with money having been in plentiful supply since their Middle Eastern takeover. The Citizens splashed the cash once again to usher in Pep Guardiola over the summer just gone, paying huge fees for John Stones and Leroy Sane, while big money buys such as Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero remain key figures.

1) Manchester United – £629m

After breaking the world record in terms of a fee paid for a single player to sign Paul Pogba for close to £90m, Man United are, unsurprisingly, the most expensively-formed team in any of Europe’s top five leagues, and indeed on the planet as a whole. Without the deal for the aforementioned Frenchman, their total cost would have been akin to local rivals Man City’s. Other big players such as Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial make up a large chunk of the £629m.