Lagos, at Inter, Mourinho signed; Lucio, Thiago Motta, Wesley Sneijder, Diego Milito, Samuel Eto'o, Goran Pandev - and others - forget about the transfer fees for a moment, can you imagine how much money some of those players were/are on?
Way, way, way out of our League - that's for sure.
And why are you ignoring the Chelsea spending as if it doesn't count? The fact is he went there and in order to win what he did, he spent an astonishing amount of money. The wages their top 15 players or so was/are on is incredible.