Net spend for me. Imagine Pep decides to leave tomorrow. KdB follows him. Sold for 200 million.
The new manager replaces Kevin with Coutinho for 200m.
Now saying that the new manager has spent shedloads and we haven't improved is patently unfair. He's replaced like with like and therefore will have done well to stay at the same level.
It’s just mental gymnastics though to find a way to spend all this money while trying to maintain a moral high ground over City. Net spend is as much a measurement of your ability to get decent fees for bad players as it is your hypothetical. When Chelsea do shady deals for players to China they get to bleat in about net spend but we let players like Mangala piss about on loans because we are generally not a player hostile organization