you cant just look at expenditure on players alone. firstly, liverpools transfer activity this seasons was largely offset by the suarez sale. but more importantly, like us, the season we sold bale, liverpool bought players who are in the 40-70k p/w category. and their current squad is largely made up of players in that quality bracket. the total amount spent on the players is largely irrelevant. thats what made rodgers' comment on us so ridiculous/delusional a couple of seasons ago (im referring to the "100m..challenge for the title"). whatever we spent that summer, our sqaud was still made up of 40-70k p/w players. the 'problem' for us ad liverpool is that we cant really afford to have those 100-140k p/w like arsenal do, or even the 250k players that the top 3 have. we simply cant afford to take on that kind of risk. at the start of the season, i pointed out that liverpool would be in an almighty fight if they were to finish in the top 4, despite what the media and rodgers and liverpool fans were saying/hoping for (another title challenge). liverpool's financial structure means that even a 4th place finish is a massive acheivment.
in addition, you can quite clearly see that fsg are trying to reduce expenditure at liverpool. liverpool have been making significant operating losses over the past few years. and its only this season that they have managed to break even. *my source is the swissramble blog. rodgers has had to offload high wage earners like pepe reina and replace him with the cheaper but weaker option that is mignolet. also in terms of transfer activity, fsg dont really seem to be investing like previous owners (espeically when compared to rafa benitez' reign). most of their acitivty seems to be balanced by player sales.
in short, liverpool's best players are the likes of coutinho and sterling. to expect this kind of squad to constantly challenge teams made up of players like {ozil, alexis}, {silva, yaya}, {hazard, fabregas}, {rooney, mata, di maria} is delusional. the difference is that all those players are quite obviously 100k+ p/w players (and they have many more of this level of player), whilst liverpool arguably have no players that are in the 100k plus bracket (perhaps apart from sterling). when liverpool have had this calibre of player over the past few seasons, they have not been able to afford them, so have sold them off. much like they will probably end up having to do with sterling. so it doesnt matter how much a team like liverpool spend net in transfer fees. the more important thing to look at is the calibre of player they are bringing in. and quite honestly, i dont think rodgers has been given the license to get a much better bunch of players than the ones he has done.