We were literally bottom half when he took over and recouped a massive amount of that money whilst decreasing the wage bill drastically.
Wage bills for the last few years, for anyone interested (NB players' salaries are cut by up to 25% in years with no CL participation):
2015/16: £232m
2016/17: £263m (no CL participation)
2017/18: £296m
2018/19: £332m
2019/20: £284m (no CL participation)
It will be interesting to see what the wage bill has increased to this season, now that we are in the CL again.