I don't see why 2003 should be the starting point in this argument just cos Roman bought Chelsea. Arsenal were buying big before then, Bergkamp, Platt, Henry, Overmars, Wiltord, Jeffers, Henry, so were the rags, Veron and Ferdinand close to 30 mill pre 2003, that would be 60 mill in todays money?
Crazy to compare figures over that length of time as the money in the game has changed so much the past few years. Clubs have changed, we were once buying Liverpools scraps in Mcmahon, Fowler, David Johnstone, Beardsley etc now they buy ours in Kolo, Balotelli and Milner and we're going after their best player, that would be unheard of 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago.
The bottom line is Arsenal have 2 billionaire owners that have decided not to invest big, our billionaire has, and lastly if you want to go by that table, the top 3 spenders are the teams that have won the league between them the past 11 years, what does that tell you, if you wanna win you gotta spend big.