Maybe that was also part of what Walsh meant when he said about ensuring the player had the right character etc mate the other month
Take both Dolberg and Tielemans as an example, both have actually played down moving to a CL - massive team, and stated they need to ensure they are playing as the most important factor, both are the attitude we should be looking at recruiting, there is enough out their at all age levels with that attitude and the ability to match.
As for who we can attract, think we as fans and with some past justification do downplay the level of player we can get, remember a lot saying we couldn't get Lukaku/Deulofeu etc until we did, also remember players like Tadic and Ziyech and people saying they'd go to a bigger team than us, and they ended up at saints and ajax respectively