You're right but perhaps this is also symptomatic of what happens (or at least what is meant to happen) when a club enters the top 10 wealthiest in the world and stays there for a prolonged period.
Clubs at that level pay well above the odds the whole time as smaller clubs know that they are a) usually desperate, as the risk of failure carries so much more weight and b) stupidly loaded with cash. It creates the perfect storm for rip offs and overhyped sensationalism.
It isn't just teams like Chelsea, either. Barca do it the whole time. Look at the money United spent on Antony, City on Grealish, Liverpool on Nunez, Atletico on Felix, Arsenal have also done it once or twice in recent years and the fact they're willing to part with £70m for Caceido after 30 PL appearances shows they are more than happy to take that gamble again.
Up at the top table, bargains are extremely difficult to find, which is why the likes of Chelsea and City try to grab and hoard youngsters by offering them their first senior contract, then loan them out for the next 6 years in the hope someone comes good.
Long gone are the days when we could pick up a Berbatov for £12m, a Dawson for £5m, a Carrick for £3m, a Walker for £3m, a Dele for £5m etc. We just aren't in that timezone anymore and tbh the sooner the club executive accepts this as fact, the sooner we will crack the ongoing transfer impasses we continue to encounter, simply because we still expect the world to look at us a little old Totnum from a dilapidated 35,000 seater stadium. Not anymore. The world looks at us, our CL money and our shiny stadium and it sees exactly what it sees when Chelsea, Liverpool, Barca or United pick up the phone.
These teams routinely waste circa £50-80m on duds every single season. We'd best get used to the same thing happening here.
