To put it into context - Sunderland this summer have signed Diarra 25m, Adingra - 20m, Xhaka - free, Sadiki - 14m, and Alderete -8m.
All of those would be squad players minimum and upgrades over our bench - several of them would be starters and better than what we have.
That's good recruitment and for Sunderland yes maybe they overpaid on Diarra to get him in quickly and maybe overpaid Xhaka in wages to get him over the line.
Recruitment is about knowing your level and buying at the top of that, seems like we have either over estimated our pull and wasted time and effort on players really had no interest, or if we don't get Dibling then again we've tried too high a level in money we are willing to spend.
Both are signs of very bad recruitment