Not to forget the tidy sum we got for Ox.
That said I think the wages are the reason we didn't do any business, and our player sales were made to offset our fees paid. By keeping our wages relatively high in terms of our revenue streams and FFP we are less likely to spend by default, and more likely to generate pre-tax profits. I saw something that after the trolley dash recruitment of 2010/11 season our operating costs rose by something like 20m despite the sales of Fabregas & Co, and that they've continued to rise each season regardless of revenues or spending.
AW was the ideal manager for doing so as long as he was able to keep us over-achieving in terms of top4, but the shit comes down hard when we need to rebuild in order to regain top4.
If Emery manages to regain top4 this season he will be the only manager to do so in the current PL money era without the club having spent over 100m in at least 1 transfer summer.