Spotrac and Capology have generally had accurate details on player wages and salaries for all clubs across Europe.
Up until last summer I worked out how much we’d shaved off using their data, it isn’t exactly £500k, just under iirc but the departures of big earners like Kane, Lloris, Perisic, Ndombele and Dier plus multiple others like Lo Celso, Emerson, Skipp, Sessegnon, Sanchez and so on over that 12-18 month period massively slashed our wage budget. Of the players we’ve brought in, only Maddison and Werner would have wages that are comparable to those who departed.
Even if you choose to ignore the data from those websites, I’m almost certain we’ve sold/ released more players than we’ve signed over this 12-18 month period, that alone would almost certainly point towards a reduction.