I don't find anything odd in Marotta's interview. He called Ibra and Messi top class players and indeed those are difficult to acquire, especially for a club that can't financially compete with the likes of City, Real, Barca etc. Let's take a Higuain as an example, if he Real decide to sell him than Chelsea and City will 100% be after him and what we could offer him that those two can't.
On the other hand that doesn't justify signing players like Borriello and Padoin. If we can't compete for top class players than we should go for younger players with potential, which seems like we are doing (Buoy, Appelt, Pogba?).