Unless someone can show me the stats, and how those stats stack up against other teams, I can and will deny it and put it down as another one of the tropes that football fans love to repeat but don't always stand up to scrutiny - (back to haunt us, anyone needing a win, never do well on televised games, never win crunch games etc.).
This season we signed 11 players, none were ex.
We brought in 7 loans, 2 were ex (one who left has a youngster before he played for us)
I'm open to the argument it's easier to persuade ex-players to come back on loan, but I don't think we're unique in that regard.