No clue. I'd imagine it's more a case we don't even compete for players who we know will want a massive salary. When your wages to turnover ratio is consistently the lowest in the league, there is clearly a concerted effort to keep wages under very tight control. From what I understand, Levy ties as much as possible to performance. So you get CL, you get paid a nice fat bonus and the ratio isn't adversely hit. You don't, you won't. Other clubs pretty much just pay the wages and if you're a player, that's infinitely more attractive. Who is the last top player we really competed for in the market? I'm not condemning Levy, it's an outstanding way to run a business. But it also limits us in terms of who we can compete for.
Here's 21-22 when we were at 57% and still the lowest - we brought that down to 47% the following year (
https://www.statista.com/chart/22002/premier-league-wage-burden/). Even in a European context, we have a very low wages to turnover ratio (
)