It did appear that Patarici was on our radar for quite some time, but it still took a while to get him officially signed up. It definitely feels like we had our 'list' (managers) and he had his. What we don't know is how much overlap there was of those lists and the depth of discussions prior to his announcement.
To fail to be on the same page this early in the relationship would be careless at best. FWIW I don't think it is that but, (mainly as imo the Gattuso stuff was largely noise from his camp, Mendes etc) it does feel a bit like we done some leg work and interviewing from our list, and when that didn't bare fruit got Patarici in to plunder his list.
The time since Jose left is a bit of a red herring, if he had left at the end of the season, it would have made this gap shorter but all it would have meant is 6 more weeks of Jose...great
.
Financially we are in a tight spot, any events, bums on seats type businesses are, we still continued on playing and relatively speaking have a massive wage bill to service (players wise). Marry the financial situation with the qualities and cycle of the current squad, the DofF route makes sense (as long as we have got the right man... Campos, Rangnick anyone?), an in depth understanding of the market, and expertise on spotting talent equals being smarter with our acquisition s and better bang for our limited buck.
It's looking like a two season flip, until that spending power returns to the projected levels that were built into the grand plan. Remember, we should be just about to start season 4 of being in the new stadium with full income from everything it can provide, if my prediction is right and it takes this season and next to get back to full power we are 5 years out from where we should have been. And if you're honest, no-one is to blame for that.
I think Levy thought we were primed to be winners, and all we needed was a winner to drag us over the line. This was a massive misjudgement. It was Poch overachieving that had created that mirage. That said, Jose was appointed before Covid, stadium online, the cash rolling in, if he had the foresight to predict covid (yeah right
) was happening he'd have never gone for Jose, the financial landscape shifted.
The only way we over achieve in the next two years is if we 'luck out' with another manager that overachieves with what he has to work with in the short term. The club is more aiming (or should be) for that period a bit further on when everything settles down again and actually allows us to resume on the path that should have started 3 seasons ago. This all does look a bit messy and drawn out BUT, given the Euros, there is still time, and a good appointment is still imperative (I didn't want to say 'the right')