A.Villa haven't spent quite as much but not far off, spending nearly £84 Mill on 7 players.
They are after more players and their spending in pre-season will be in excess of £100 Mill.

Edited by Willo (12 Jul 2019 9.21pm)

I have to admit I've bitten my tongue for a while as I whole healrtly support parish, however now more than ever we need some activity in the transfer market and show players like wilf, Sakho,tomkins, luka etc etc that we want to be competitive.
Time after time I hear the players say we've got talent in the squad and we should be finishing higher, but I ask you all this question what arent we?
It's purely down to the fact we dont have the squad or the players. Take for example kirby, hes on pre season atm with the first team however realistically is he going to be in the first team squad next year? No, no he wont. The geezer was on loan to a league 1 side, we need numbers, we need signings otherwise we will find ourselves back in the champ. I can see us doing a stoke if I'm being honest.

We do not have the same buying power as Leicester or West Ham, I think with West Ham they screwed the tax payer and are living in rented accommodation. Southampton are interesting as they too were in administration like us, but turned it around.

Now Watford we must be in a better position than them, but no they seem to recruit better players than us and have without doubt progressed and they get smaller gates than us, just putting that out there!,

Three quality signings that are ready for the first team seems the minimum for me, with this bringing the senior squad up to 22 players (I think?) of which 19 would be outfield players. We definitely need a new right-back, we still need a backup winger and we need a striker. Personally I also think the club are crying out for a creative playmaker. The club has spent the last 12 months clearing out the players who it believed were surplus to requirements, but now we are undeniably short on numbers. The only two outfield areas we are really blessed with cover is centre-back and central midfield. Within the remaining squad there are also some big question marks such as Sorloth's ability to step up, Wickham's ability to recover and Sakho and Tomkins regular injuries.

On the positive side Jairo looked good in the first pre-season match and Meyer looks like he might kick on this year, plus Bentenke showed signs he might finally return to form. Again though these opinions are a long way from certainties. If we only signed Ayew and a new right-back then I do think we'd stay up as our core 11 are still strong, but for those who pay for season tickets or pay to watch the games regularly there would be strong grounds for protest.

I am generally very supportive of the club, its owners and the players, but given the cost of tickets, merchandise and memberships there is also a duty to provide some excitement to the fans and signing new and talented players is part of this. Most people were patient last summer recognising the need to restrain spending, but with £50m in the bank and no big signings for two years there have to be questions asked. Hopefully in the next few weeks we'll make the signings we need and we can push on from last season, but if not then the club should come out and be honest as to why.

I think we've been crying out for a creative midfielder since we got back in the Premier League. I thought Cabaye was the answer but he was played as a deep midfielder. Again I wrongly assumed Max was the man but no. We even tried Chamakh in that position.

Punch was the closest we’ve come to a real attacking mid. Anyone that’s proven to score or create goals in the Prem costs money or you might get lucky and loan them in. Otherwise we’ll be waiting for Wilf cash when we really will need more creativity or try potential that may not succeed. Ideally you implement a mixture of those.

COYP