Ask one of the dozen or so scouts we have.
Not sure how many times people can write the same thing, but I'll write if again
Signing crap players to replace crap players isn't going to make a crap team any better, it's just going to burden said crap team with yet another crap player.
We going back go "what player can we afford though, he's the best we can do"
This is because we KEEP SIGNING CRAP PLAYERS
I can but it sounds like you are the arbitrary decider of who is a championship player and who isn't anyhow? If we are going for Adams then those scouts and their bosses have decided that is the best course of action given the price/wages/do they actually want to come here. The latter being the most important as that certainly effects the wages, they want big money to join as they aren't hitting any other targets by coming here.
And I would suggest these players aren't breaking the bank as you say, they should have a residual value were we only lose a few million compared to the 30 for Iwobi that might be walking out the door for nothing next season. Add that to the 30 for Gbamin, 20 for Gomes, 27 for Bolasie, 40 for Sigurdsson, 27 for Tosun, 20 for Walcott, then you can see why we are poor.