i think our views only slightly differ, but in a key way.
my basic premise is that levy and co are making what they feel are the best (and most logical) decisions for the club. however, i think that it is precisely these "logical" decisions that will keep us progressing long term.
the kind of short-termism that i feel you are suggesting will only lead us ending up like leeds utd. we have to make very well thought out decisions over a number of seasons if we are to catch the team above us, arsenal. simply overspending to buy individual players that we feel will suddenly make us magically improve ten-fold will be suicidal for us imo.
at the end of the 11-12 season, we finished 20 points off the winners. do you really think that a world-class striker and a defender would have made up for a 20 point gap? individual players make far less of an impact than you probably think. for example: when we had modric, we were top 4 contenders. without him, we were still top 4 contenders. the same applies for bale. the same also applies at arsenal pre and post the sales of fabregas, rvp, henry, nasri etc. football is a team game and if we are to make any significant strides, our whole team needs to improve.
at the moment, we probably feel a striker would propel us to the next level. someone that can actually score consistently (as opposed to ade and soldado). however, if we were to have a 25 goal a season man up front, we would then be saying we need a top winger once we realise that andros townsend or lennon are no alexis sanchez. and think that is what is needed to overtake arsenal.
basically, had we had spent 15m on a cb instead of nelsen, i'm pretty sure that we would still have finished roughly where we eventually ended up, but have been 15m lighter.
Let's agree to disagree, then. I agree that the team needs to be good as a unit to seize and hold winning positions in the modern game, but teams are ultimately composed of indviduals, and (I'm a believer in this), no team is stronger than its weakest link. Beyond that, the morale effects of watching the likes of Tevez and Cahill come in that January would undoubtedly have given a boost that is hard to quantify, but would certainly have helped when it came to keeping our heads up as Harry was increasingly distracted by the England fiasco: conversely, the disappointment that must have been floating around after the arrival of Saha and Nelsen on free transfers must undoubtedly have influenced both Harry and the team in some way.
Beyond that, the raising of the tired 'Leeds' bogeyman again and your (probably sincerely held) belief that doing anything other than thrusting Saha, Nelsen, Fazio and Stambouli into our managers' faces when they ask for quality that our tight-fisted owners refuse to wholeheartedly pursue is illogical and an affront to our progression are two of your positions that I vehemently, violently disagree with, but also respect enough to avoid pressing the matter too much given my exertions on those topics across this forum.
Our owners have decided to run this club entirely on fan contributions, whether direct or indirect. The amount they've put into this club is roughly equivalent to just two years of matchday revenue, and putting in any more seems to a prospect that gives them cold sweats and nervously quivering jowls. Instead, they're content to rely on charging absolutely ridiculous prices far out of proportion to our standing as a club (second highest prices in the league, for a club that has made the CL once in its entire history and has won a solitary League Cup under the current ENIC regime) as a means of raising the income necessary to keep us in sixth place in terms of PL-wide revenue, while contributing next to nothing in relative terms and just waiting for us to become attractive enough for someone to buy them out for an outrageous price far out of keeping with what they paid to acquire this club, and with what they've put into this club.
That's just about acceptable in relatively even times, I suppose: this is what the modern game is like. But when we are within touching distance of glory.....to see it disappear because our wide-eyed owners quivered in their ermine robes when asked to take a risk and push out the boat to achieve what we were so close to perilously achieving is galling enough to raise the fans from their slumbers and bring forth some uncomfortable questions. Questions like 'what on earth are we paying these outrageous prices for, when the owners have made no equivalent investment into the club on their part?'. And 'will the club actually change in any way if they just weren't there?'.
The way they're acting, these owners have taken us as far as they can, and now they're slowly turning into parodies of themselves by hiring managers with visions for the club and then giving them bargain basement dirt-cheap buys instead of the players they specifically ask for to put this vision into practice. When the manager inevitably struggles to adapt these cheap replacements to the roles he had originally envisioned a better player filling, he's sacked, and the next poor schlubb is brought in, and the same damn thing happens again.
These are not good decisions being made by owners playing with other people's money. And given that decision-making is the most important thing they contribute to this club, it is only natural that a lot of questions are now arising about their ability to even do the one thing they can justify as being their contribution to the club.
