My point as always is that the excuses wear thin after 20 years plus. Yes, we can all be nuanced on the different events that have been said to have 'held us back' when in reality there has been one constant over that time.
I certainly am tired of the debate about the excuses people keep listing for ENIC which do wear thin now, e.g. what's the excuse now for Arsenal to having overtaken us in such drastic fashion recently? It certainly cannot realistically be any of the ones i listed...
Because you're tired of and unwilling to entertain them doesn't make them any less valid
Arsenal currently aren't really doing anything we didn't under Poch but it is them that are to be lauded while we should be having an inquest as to why we didn't do better? I mean have a think about that and see if you can spot the discrepancy in how those are being viewed differently.
There is no excuse as such for why we have dropped off while they have kicked on - i think I have explained my view on this time period in posts over the last few days and iirc no 'excuses' were offered, but to expand/recap:
Arsenal set about a second post-Wenger rebuild (earlier botched attempt with Sven Misilntat/Emery) with Edu & Arteta, they had a 2-3 season period laying foundations wrt squad building, including clearing the squad of high earners & investing in youth, this included 3 seasons outside of the CL on top of the 2 or 3 years previous they were outside of it under Wenger & Emery, i think they also had a couple of years out of Europe altogether during this 5-6 year period but not sure of specifics. Once the squad was in good shape and the team was clicking with the managers project they invested in good quality first team players to plug the few obvious gaps, culminating in the Rice transfer. They reached a point where they had seemingly maxed what they were willing or able to spend and this season regressed on the pitch from the levels they had reached previously, though still have an opportunity to win the big one.
The mistake you are making IMV is comparing us in 2022 with them in the same year - in 2022 they were already several seasons in to their (2nd!) rebuild project, whereas we had barely started on our Paratici led rebuild-that-wasnt-really-a-rebuild, yes we had finished above them that season but the clubs were in different places and with different momentum and ground work behind them. Arsenal were adding the final pieces to a project 3 years in, we was flogging the last remaining quality from Poch era and putting off a top to tail rebuild that was long over due. That said in that post 4th place summer we did buy Richarlson (as backup to Kane, 60m) Bissouma (ahead of Arsenal funnily enough), made permanent the Romero loan, Perisic, Spence, Udogie & Porro joined in Jan, not a bad window truth be told.
Post Conte we clearly made a conscious decision to finally commit to the rebuild that anyone and everyone in the Spurs fansphere was saying at the time was sorely needed - we are now 2 years or so in to that, if you're set on comparisons with Arsenal then where we are now/the summer is where they were going in to Artetas 3rd season, the one in which they finished 5th.
So I put it that next season if we get ourselves back to pushing for top 4 and clicking with whoever the new manager is then we're tracking the much more ambitious and clued up Arsenal quite well. We can also see from the above that mistakes are made on their way, Arsenal haven't had constant upward curve of progress post Wenger under their ownership model, they botched one attempt at a rebuild and sacked a clearly talented manager (Emery) and then spent 2-3 further seasons bumbling around the Europa/non European places, where they clearly could have made better decisions there and then to be doing better. So let's have it right...
