How do we compare to Reading, out of interest?
I don't think we can afford to pay big money for players. Ryan Kent was the exception to the rule and even at that, is that even classed as big money compared to what Atalanta have been paying?
I genuinely don't know the answer to the questions, but I'd imagine our budget definitely ISN'T the same as anyone's in the Champions League until we get there ourselves.
Our wage budget is pretty similar to Reading/Atalanta.
Atalanta pay decent fees for players, but they don’t pay huge wages. They’ve only been in the CL for a couple of years, so they aren’t quite spending fortunes just now (usually about £10-15m).
They pay fairly decent fees for players, but they trade so many players for ridiculous profit that probably allows them to pay higher fees than a club of their size should.
(Kessie, Caldara, Kulusevski, getting £48m from United for Diallo who had played about 7 games, to name a few)
They were having to play their European games in Milan not too long ago, as their stadium didn’t meet Uefa requirements.
Their top earners (Zapata & Muriel) are only on about £1.5m a year.
I suspect, a couple more years of CL then they will obviously develop further. However, right now they are hugely over achieving.
To answer your question, our budget dwarfs some CL sides over the past couple of years.
