with regard to average wages I happen to know that when he was Captain Darren Purse was on £26K a week and he was the highest paid footballer in the club. That equates to about £37K today.
Since then we have had the banking collapse and various other things. I think that todays average will be not much higher than it was then, and probably lower in purchasing power.
And if it's true to this club it will probably be true for many others too.
Plus paying over the odds could get a club into a fight over the financial limitations today.