Will New York City act before the transfer window closes?

With the 2025 primary transfer window set to close tomorrow, many of the sickos and pundits out in soccerland might be wondering if New York City FC will add any players to reinforce a young and imbalanced squad that has struggled in recent games.

To go by the club’s transfer history, the answer is yes.

The club tends to be more active in the primary transfer window at the start of the season than in the secondary transfer window in the summer. Over the years, NYCFC has added 9.5 players on average in the primary transfer window, and just 2.2 players in the secondary window. (Not that the primary window average of 9.5 players doesn’t include data from this year, which is still active, or the club’s debut in 2015, when the roster was built from scratch.) Given that Sporting Director David Lee made just six signings so far this year, the second-fewest in club history after the four signings at the start of the COVID-shortened 2020 season, New York City should add more players before the window closes.

New York City FC | Transfers In by Year

* Not including 2025 and 2015

Moreover, those six players are essentially depth pieces and development projects. They include three Homegrowns (one of whom is recovering from an injury suffered last year), two MLS SuperDraft picks, and one backup goalkeeper whose last MLS appearance came in 2023. They were brought in to fill out the bench and play for a future version of the First Team, not to make the Starting XI right away.

That stands in stark contrast to the players signed in past primary windows. A significant number were top prospects or experienced veterans who were expected to compete for starting roles: Gudi Thórarinsson and Nicolás Acevedo in 2020, Malte Amundsen and Alfredo Morales in 2021, Thiago Martins and Gabriel Pereira in 2022, Matt Freese and Brian Cufré in 2023, Hannes Wolf and Agustín Ojeda in 2024.

New York City FC | Players Signed in 2025

Historically, players signed in the primary transfer window had an immediate impact on the Starting XI. By that standard, this year is an anomaly.

Just look at the nine players Lee signed last in the 2024 primary window. Three of them were presumed to take on important roles in the First Team. Jovan Mijatović was coming off appearances in the Europa Champions League, Ojeda was regarded as the “jewel” of Racing Club’s academy, and Wolf had more than 150 appearances for Borussia Mönchengladbach and RB Leipzig. They brought to New York City to help the team win games.

New York City FC | Players Signed in 2024

One way to gauge the expectations the front office places on the players it signs is to look at the size of the outgoing transfer fees. In 2024, Lee spent $15.9 million in transfer fees, a new club record. That was on the heels of the $9.4 million he spent in 2023, when he added 13 players.

Fast-forward to this year, when Lee has spent zero dollars on transfer fees.

This could be the first time in history that the club didn’t spend any money on incoming players.

New York City FC | Transfer Fees by Year, Outgoing

† Incomplete information available

The term “could be” is doing a lot of work here: We’re not sure how much New York City did (or didn’t) spend on transfer fees in the club’s early days, which is why the numbers through 2018 on the table above are so low. Did New York City really spend zero dollars in transfer fees in 2014 and 2015, when they added 34 players to build the team’s roster from the ground up? It’s highly unlikely, but the club didn’t disclose any fees back then.

In fact, clubs rarely disclose the value of transfer fees, and the dollar amounts reported in the media are usually a product of leaked information and guesstimates. Add to that the complex nature of performance bonuses and sell-on fees, and it’s impossible to pin down a fixed amount. That said, there is more information available now than there was in previous years. The work done by journalists such as Tom Bogert, César Luis Merlo, and Fabrizio Romano makes it easier to track Major League Soccer transfer fees. Still, many of the numbers we document here at Hudson River Blue in the HRB Database should be treated as ballpark figures, not certified transactions.

But one thing we know for certain is that Lee hasn’t spent anything on transfer fees so far in 2025.

Could that change before the transfer window closes tomorrow? Possibly. Three transfer rumors linking players to New York City surfaced in recent weeks, and two of those – midfielder Aiden O’Neill and center-back Kenneth Omeruo – feel like they could pan out. (The third, Kevin De Bruyne, is a little far-fetched.)

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Hudson River BlueAndrew Leigh

But even if a player is signed, we might not hear about it right away. Back in 2021, New York City signed Santiago Rodriguez before the close of the transfer window on June 1, but the deal wasn’t made public until June 9, more than one week later.