Could be of course that the players they wanted to sell were seen as more talented and worth more than our castoffs ?I think we show desperation to talk about them that Saudi's are helping them by buying their players. Saudis bought from other clubs too like liverpool, italian clubs, neymar e.t.c. Their best deals are in Europe. Look how much they got for mason an avg player one year left on contract. Same goes for Haveritz. They sold 2 players to milan clos to 40 mil. Even newcastle buying the youngester from them who played few games for close to 30mil. They got close to 10 mil in Livramonto deal too. Ziyech is close to Gala transfer. There is still possibility that conor, maatsen and chalobah might leave and all wanted in PL.
They efficiently sold there unwanted players where we failed as every year. This is what hold us back every transfer window.