I have been a long term viewer of this site and I suppose I have been drawn to sign up and contribute due to the happenings of this season.
The way I see it, is that there is no way of outspending Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea due their financial clout so if I was in charge I would clear out all the high earning non-contributing players and fill out the squad with the promising young players the club have produced recently.
The squad would look something like this.
4:3:3
Begovic/Archer
Walker/Fredericks
New RCB/Caulker
Vertonghen/Olgilvie
New LB/Rose
Capoue/Veljkovic
New LCM/Carroll
Holtby/Bentaleb
Lamela/Townsend
Adebayor/Kane
Eriksen/Pritchard
This means selling:
Lloris (I think PSG will be in for him this summer), Friedel, Gomes, Naughton, Dawson, Kaboul, Chiriches, Assou-Ekotto, Lennon, Falque, Livermore, Paulinho, Sandro, Dembele, Sigurdsson, Chadli, Mason, Soldaldo
With the money recouped from selling those players above you could make signings of serious quality (RCB,LB and LCM). Any left over cash could then be re-invested in the new stadium project.
It would be brave to trust the young players to fill in the gaps when injuries occur but with a fixed formation which makes the most of the players that we have at our disposal and the fact that the youngsters have a point to prove and have a real bond to the club, would mean a 5-6th place finish would be very achievable.
Blooding the younger players in the Europa League would help their development no end and prepare them for the higher intensity games when they are called upon.
I know it seems like a surrender to not want Champions League football but until the new stadium is ready as top player wages are unsustainable in our current financial position. Inevitably players like Eriksen, Vertonghen will be cherry picked but there will be other starlets to attract and perhaps the younger understudies will be ready to fill the gap by then.
I guess it's a very similar model to how Ajax run and it's a shame to sell off the best talent but aside from throwing oil money at the first team like City have done it's the only way to run. Put it this way, I would rather see Spurs come 5th running the club like this (playing under a young progressive coach working to a sound system) than winning the league by paying mercenaries a fortune.