Manchester City field the most foreign signings in the big five leagues, while Arsenal sit 10th on the list.

There’s very little domestic bias in the Premier League.

That’s according to a recent study by the CIES Football Observatory into the number of foreign signings made by clubs from the so-called big five league.

They found that a number of Premier League teams preferred to field players signed from abroad.

Topping that list is Manchester City.

Percentage of players fielded signed from abroad, big-5 league clubs:

top foreign signings league
via football-observatory.com

[table key: [TOT]: Number of players fielded in domestic league matches since the start of the season – [REC]: Players signed from abroad]

City have played 22 players in total this season, with 17 of them signed from abroad.

Chelsea run them close in second, with 16 of their 21 players used this season from foreign clubs.

Arsenal sit in 10th, having fielded 14 foreign players this season out of the 23 they’ve used in total.

This is in stark contrast to Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham, who each have a large percentage of players signed from domestic clubs.

With all these clubs in the top six of the Premier League, the results suggests that where the players come from do not effect league standing that much.

In the end, if you’re signing good players, it shouldn’t matter where they have come from.