Isn’t there also a limit on how many players you can loan out? I think the FIFA limit is 7 loans for this season, which drops to 6 going forward from next season. We also need to be careful with this multi club approach, Villa & Brighton were both recently sanctioned by UEFA and banned from sharing scouting databases, and told to reduce their holdings in their satellite clubs.
You are right that we are spending loads of money on these players, and I don’t actually think it was ever profitable under Roman. It was just generating enough to break even. A flaw in this approach also is most of the big money transfers globally is made by premier league clubs, and a large chunk of these are players with PL experience. The biggest transfer in the French league this summer was the €28m deal taking Ekitike from Stade Reims to PSG after an initial season loan. If we are loaning/buying these £15m-£20m for Strasbourg, who is the target market?