Those fees in your link are off. We sold Fab for a reported £35m. Nasri for £25m. So why not buy two marquee players not one?
How do you end up with Gervinho, Ox, Arteta, Park, Merts, Jenks and Santos? Zero marquee players after selling two!. Only Merts and Arteta served any purpose for the first team and people on here still debate their quality.
Is this not making any sense to you? Diluting the quality? And yes, we could have done what we're doing now years ago and quite possibly held on to one or two key players. Heck, you're marbles if you think we couldn't do with a better keeper in those days.