Manchester City's long wait for a Champions League title has rumbled on for another season.
Ever since Sheikh Mansour's mega-money takeover at the Etihad Stadium, City have set their sights on conquering Europe and they came within a nose hair of achieving exactly that in 2021.
The Premier League champions slumped to a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in this year's final, failing to break down the Blues' defence as Kai Havertz nipped in with a first-half winner.
City's Champions League woes
The Citizens had hoped that the appointment of Pep Guardiola would be the final piece in the puzzle for them to win the Champions League and have strongly back him in the transfer market.
With players like Ruben Dias, Aymeric Laporte, Rodri and Benjamin Mendy all arriving for big bucks, you can't accuse City's owners of not loosening their pursestrings for the legendary coach.
And it's for that exact reason that so many rival supporters find it amusing that Guardiola has infamously struggled to deliver the trophy that everyone at City so badly desires.
Man City vs Chelsea - Match Reaction Show (Football Terrace)
City splashing the cash
Five years of back-breaking attempts has resulted in one round of 16 elimination, three quarter-final exits and a runners-up medal that many would view as City having badly underachieved.
And that rings particularly true when you consider a statistics brought to our attention by Reddit user 'mti4', who went viral on Saturday afternoon with more than 2,000 up-votes on r/soccer.
That's because they revealed that the Citizens have the highest net spent of any football club in the world since Guardiola took over the club in 2016 at a staggering total of £557.96 million.
City's monstrous net spending
The data, which we've been able to corroborate on Transfermarkt, proves damning when you consider that City don't have a Champions League trophy to show for their extravagant spending.
And it certainly doesn't help when you spot that their conquerers Chelsea are sitting comparatively pretty in eighth place, so be sure to check out the full list of net spending down below:
Huge expenditure, paltry income
It's a tough read for City fans, it must be said, because more than £850 million of spending with only £301.46 million collected in sales shows they really have thrown the kitchen sink at conquering Europe.
However, they can at least console themselves with the fact that Manchester United are lurking in second place and haven't even been in the Champions League for large parts of the last five years.
And City don't top the charts when it comes to spending overall with Barcelona having splurged an eye-watering £946.22 million but have, by contrast, recouped more than £600 million in return.
Nevertheless, City's place at the top of the net spending table will inevitably add fuel to the fire of arguments that Guardiola should have won the Champions League with all that expenditure.
On paper, it's difficult to argue that shouldn't be the case, but perhaps it's simply evidence that money can't buy you everything and it certainly can't bag you 'Big Ears'.