Explaining why the Red Dragons had to splash the cash, while bringing little in, Williamson has told The Leader: “Finding the right investment, finding the right opportunity and determining that kind of ultimate budget is something that I think was important for us to compare to what other clubs were doing.
“I know everyone talks about Wrexham spending £30million in the transfer market. Yes, that's what the net spend was because we didn't have any players to sell coming up from League One. If you compare that to Norwich, I think they spent £28million on players, more or less, with what's been reported, but they sold for £32 or £35million in players. Middlesbrough, I've seen numbers like £25-26million invested, but they sold for over £30million in players.
“If you look at clubs like Birmingham, obviously they spent £10-15 million this last summer transfer window but they sold for £8 or 9million. Charlton is probably the only one similar to us. I think they've spent £10-15 million, but they didn't have anyone to sell either.
“Yes, £30 million investment but that wasn't offset by any player sales which a club who's in the Championship already or a club that's been in the Premier League that gets relegated to the Championship, they're able to do that kind of squad change as a result of being able to sell players along the way. Or they rely on their Academy players and they sell their Academy players to fund some of the transfer market. We don't have the foundations for that within the Academy, the pipeline of players, and we had three consecutive promotions so we had to invest in the squad to be competitive.”
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