daredevil Wenger’s spend looked cautious at the time because nominal fees were lower, while Arteta’s looks extravagant in the current inflated market.
Wenger's looked cautious because he was spending a lot less compared to his rivals. Arteta's looks extravagant because he qe regularly end up with one of the highest net spend each season. Yeah, inflation may have gone up but it's all relative to what others are doing.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/einnahmenausgaben/wettbewerb/GB1/ids/a/sa//saison_id/2020/saison_id_bis/2026/nat/0/pos//w_s//intern/0
Since summer 2020 we have the 2nd highest net spend €120m behind Chelsea. In gross amounts we are the 4th highest gross spenders since 2020 but still within €50m of both City and United.
Under Arsene 2013-2018 we were 3rd in net spend with €245m, less than half of United with €570m and less than a 3rd of City with €724m.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/einnahmenausgaben/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/0?ids=a&sa=&saison_id=2013&saison_id_bis=2017&nat=&pos=&altersklasse=&w_s=&leihe=&intern=0#google_vignette
In terms of gross spendind, we were 5th with €460m spent. That's behind Liverpool (€589), just over half of United (€811) and Chelsea (€757), and less than half of City (€960).
Things are not the same in terms of spending for Arsene and Mikel, even after being adjusted for inflation, because it fails to consider the spending relative to rivals.