West Ham co-owner David Sullivan regrets letting Manuel Pellegrini spend £170million and admits the club has “chased dreams” in recent years by signing “a pile of players who have not improved the club”.
Sullivan, who is under fire from fans for a lack of summer signings, also revealed he has become “depressed” by the struggles to bring in players for David Moyes.
Felipe Anderson, Sebastien Haller, Andriy Yarmolenko and Jack Wilshere have all flopped since being signed by Pellegrini during his 18 months at the London Stadium, and Sullivan says he should have put a stop to some deals.
Sullivan also revealed he has no regrets about selling Grady Diangana to West Brom, and said West Ham will not blow their remaining transfer budget on Burnley defender James Tarkowski.
“We’ve chased dreams the last two years and bought a pile of players who, unfortunately, haven’t improved the club,” Sullivan told talkSPORT.
“Maybe they will over the coming season because there are some damn good players. We try our best. Nobody is right all the time. Everybody makes good buys and bad buys.
“I’ve left it to the previous regime for two years, they didn’t buy well.
“I regret in a way not stopping some of the signings but you have to back the manager.”
Sullivan added: “I cannot say for sure that we are going to sign anyone. As each day passes I get more depressed, there is no point in saying otherwise.
"We are not Roman Abramovich, we are not the king of Abu Dhabi who owns Manchester City.
“We’re short of defenders. I can’t go and sign two or three players the manager doesn’t want.
“I could quite simply tomorrow go and buy two or three players but we’d have a civil war at West Ham because I don’t pick the players.”
The sale of Diangana triggered a chaotic start to the season for West Ham - with captain Mark Noble hitting out at the decision on social media.
In their statement announcing the winger's departure, the Hammers insisted they would re-invest the funds raised in line with Moyes' targets.
Tarkowski is top of that list, but with Burnley holding out for close to £40m for the defender, who turns 28 next month, Sullivan is unsure as to whether any new faces will be arriving with Moyes looking to add top players instead of merely making up the numbers at the back.
"He doesn't want to bring players in that in his opinion are just numbers, just squad players," said Sullivan. "He wants to bring players in who will improve the team.
"We have a number of bids in, teams don't want to lose their players. These are key players at decent-sized clubs outside the UK, they don't want to lose them so it is difficult. Whether we get any of these players I don't know, some are young, some are old.
"We've now got the funds to buy a player or two, unfortunately at the moment the players the manager wants we can't get. He will be spending 18 hours a day looking at tapes trying to find players.
"I am waiting for targets from the manager, we have two or three bids in. Unfortunately the benchmark is very high and it is very hard to get those players.
"We have got limited funds: if we had £400m to spend and someone said you'd spend 10 per cent, £40m, on a 28-year-old centre-back at a Premier League club - who will remain nameless - at £40m you can get him out.
"As 10 per cent of the budget it would make sense, but to spend your entire budget on a 28-year-old entre-back, you're struggling.
"We're going to get no gate money possibly all season, we've got to keep the club afloat and pay the wages."
