No, we're not. As far as I'm concerned, we sold our best players to only two of the biggest clubs in the world. Barca and Real are buying clubs and all the best players in the world (with a few exceptions) want to play there. Over the past decade we sold Owen, Xabi, Mascha, Suarez, Arbeloa to these two. Torres is an exception, but it's been proven that he was on the decline anyway.
All our other big players left when either their form or their age dictated that they were no longer good enough for us.
Hyypia to Leverkusen, Hamman to City (before they were billionnaires), Riise to Roma, Agger to Brondby, Pepe to Napoli, Finnan to Espanyol, Garcia to Athletico, Kuyt to Fenerbahce, Carra retired, McAllister retired, Gerrard will retire here.
So if people want to elude to a phantom FSG business model of turning players world class and selling them on for profit, then pretty much every big team in Europe have the same model. Bayern have started to join the Spanish giants, but those two still dictate the markets. We don't sell to any other big clubs (rare occasions aside) because, regardless of the up and down seasons of the past 10 years, we're still regarded as one of the biggest clubs around, simple as that! The fact that we haven't qualified for Champs League regularly and we're in danger of not doing so prevents us from attracting some of this talent...but that's a different debate.
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