Nah, you're putting words in my mouth there. I was talking majorly about the phasing i.e. multi-year forecasting by the club. I was never talking gross or net spend in that context and certainly not the post-stadium years either.
As an approximate guide (in Euros) we went through 5 years of buying 324m and recouping 292m. That's starting the year after Bale left and the famous 7 joined. That's 22m net spend over 5 years at an average of less than £4m per year when you convert back to sterling. Now I know these aren't "all in" numbers as fans don't get to see those but they are good enough for government work. Ironically that 22m euros was less than we actually paid the tax man for the annual profits for 2 consecutive seasons. From memory, I think we broke the PL record for profit.
Then after the CL final we spend about £100m whilst Poch was still in charge of which you have to think that a decent chunk (50%?) was the winnings from that competition.
So I was always left wondering whether we got our phasing right. The market was quite inflated back then with the silly season (Neymar, Dembele, Coutinho, VVD etc) happening around 2018. Our players were worth silly valuations and I still think we did wrong not releasing one or two so we could go again.
Also no fans seem to be down on the stadium build. We had to do it to get to the next level and I think fas genuinely understand what door it opens. It was more about what we could have done in the Poch years for me. That fall from the 86 point, second place glass ceiling was dramatic but not surprising to me.
