I think the issue that is missed when talking about City’s spend now is there is still benefit from previous high spend based on sold players. In seasons that there was 200/300 million spent, that player value was never “lost” might have dropped a bit but is still present.

By selling those players they don’t need anymore after the high level of investment it makes the net spend look alot more reasonable. E.g. last window 241m was spent but they sold 114m (€). Those sales involved players like Laporte who was bought at the peak of city spending.