Once upon a time, Arsenal actually spent big in order to attract quality players and their free spending ways attracted criticism from the Football Association, as retrofootballblog.com explains...
David Jack was well known to football fans when Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman signed him for a record £10,890 in 1928.
The striker had scored the first ever goal at Wembley (the stadium had just been built) when his Bolton team beat West Ham in the 1923 FA Cup final, but the fee appalled some.
Sir Charles Clegg, head of the Football Association, believed no player was worth £10,000, but it could have been worse given Bolton initially asked for £13,000 – double the previous transfer record set by Sunderland when they bought Bob Kelly from Burnley in 1925.