Hate to interrupt a good argument, but I'd suggest looking up transfer fees before you make a point, and then reiterate that point.
Martial cost a total of £43.5m, £36m up front and him hitting one of the three £7.5m clauses (he'll not hit the other two) compared to Lucas's £25m, so not more than twice as much.
When you're buying a "wonderkid" the price reflects that, and it's an entirely different transfer to that of a failed transfer made by a bigger club, hence if we sold Martial now it would be more relevant to the Lucas transfer, when you're shopping at a higher end of the market and you're United things cost more than a Spurs.
Its a backwards argument to begin with.
The transfer fee for Martial was an investment; not a cost. Those are two completely different things. Cost is salary, not transfer fee; if its not an older player.
Martial is probably worth twice what we paid for him today so the inclination that we overpaid for him is stupid by todays standards. We have made money on him even deducting the salary paid over the years. Same applies to Pogba,
Equally, Moura has an asset value that has doubled from when Spurs bought him, and if they sold him now they would make money on him. Not the other way around. And Eriksen even worse, which is why he is running down his contract.
This has more to do with the transfer market and money being injected in to European football than anything else.
Woodward has been ridiculed on the Caf so many times for stating the obvious: This club will always have the means to invest in a Varane. Which is completely sensible if you think about it.
This thing when people label transfer fees as cost or expenditure is tiresome. It will only constitute that if its an older player or the transfer market takes a nosedive. Which will not happen anytime soon.