Loving the mental gymnastics here referencing Neymar's fee as anything other than a one off. There's been a bit of a bump, sure, but saying that van Dijk costing £75 million represents anything other than overpaying by a fair amount is kidding themselves.
Neymar left Barcelona for PSG on 3rd August.
Dembele to Barcelona was announced on 25th August for ~£95 million.
Costa to Atletico was announced on 21st September for ~£60 million.
Sigurdsson to Everton was announced on 16th August for ~£40 million.
Dembele was the second most expensive transfer this summer, which if you exclude the Neymar deal, raised the world record fee by about £6 million. He only went for as much as he did because everyone knew Barca were looking to replace Neymar and had a shitload of money to spend doing so.
It was a similar story for Sigurdsson to Everton, as everyone knew they were looking for some sort of marquee signing in the wake of Lukaku leaving.
Costa was a key player for Chelsea in 2016/17 and scored 20 league goals as they went on to win the league. £60 million wasn't too far off the going rate for that sort of striker, regardless of how happy they were.
All of these were for attacking players as well.
You can use Walker and Mendy to City as excuses if you want, but everyone knows, as they do with United, that City have money to burn. Mendy signed from the reigning French champions, who would be losing a key player to a European rival, and weakening themselves in their attempts to fend of PSG domestically, and everyone and their dog knows that Walker came with both the English premium, as well as the Levy premium, and probably a domestic rival premium too. It wasn't really surprise that City got somewhat burned by the fees.
£75 million is a crazy fee for van Dijk.