Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan has dismissed the idea that Liverpool can be classed as big spenders following their £85m deal for Darwin Nunez
The Reds have come under scrutiny from rival supporters for the finances involved in the deal with Benfica to sign Nunez.
Liverpool agreed an upfront fee of €75million (£64m) which could rise to €100m (£85m) through potential add-ons attached to the transfer agreement.
However, since the start of the 2017/18 season till present, the Reds have ranked way down in ninth place with a net transfer spending of £199m.
The same length of time shows no Premier League sides have a higher net spend than United (£479m) and City (£424.8m) with Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Everton and Newcastle all ahead of the Reds.
"Net spend is the endgame. If you're running a business, that is what the business costs you," Jordan told talkSPORT.
"If someone spends £100m net spend and someone else spends £20m net spend and achieves the same thing, the team that has spent less is the better run football club.
He added: "There is an argument about Liverpool being under-scrutinised, but everyone scrutinises and, if you’re in one camp, you’re going to say you're being more scrutinised than the other. As a matter of fact, Guardiola spends £100m net spend per year and Klopp spends £28m.
"They're neck-and-neck and if you want to run these arguments about how many trophies you get from it, if you spend four times the amount of money in the same time span then you're probably likely to achieve four times the outcome. Klopp spends a net spend of £28m up until the end of the last season, Guardiola spends a net spend £108m. That is, give or take, four times the net spend. It's good business [by Liverpool]. They sold Coutinho for £142m, they brought in Virgil van Dijk and the goalkeeper [Alisson] with other people’s money.
"If Liverpool are able to sell players yet progress and use other people's money, for the love of god, surely that's good and should be admired. Not ‘hang on a second, they still spent big money’. They spend big money that other people pay them, to buy other people’s players with."