@DubaiSpur I think you just have to admit, they've taken a long term view, implemented a long-term strategy, and by and large, it is paying off. This is what Poch is talking about. Once we're in the stadium, with a great squad, some of the best facilities in the world, and with a proper wage budget to attract players that want to win titles, then there are no excuses. Until we are there, we are on the journey. And we have decided to invest in long term things to help us sustain that level rather than plough the same money in to short term fixes.
They have taken an extremely long-term view. As for it paying off, not in terms of trophies - not yet. But yes, in general terms, we have a big stadium and a shiny training ground. I recognize that. However, see below....
@DubaiSpur
Yes, Chelsea won a load of trophies, but they were powered by oil money as you know. They've also had a few seasons in 10th, in 8th, in 6th, which if we had done would have set us back. But we're now pretty much were Arsenal are from a commercial revenue point of view. So the plan is working, it just depends on the view you take. Has it been a failure because we haven't won a trophy in the relatively short term period you want to judge it by? Yes, subjectively you could say that if that's what you were going for. But Levy is looking over a longer horizon. Are we almost there? Yes.
Sure. However, the simple trade-off is that this longer horizon will bring us more trophies in the long-run than Chelsea's approach has brought them in the short run. Do you think that's likely?
In the next two decades, do you think we'll win 20+ trophies because of Levy's prudence and long-term view? Honest question, not going to dispute the response.
@DubaiSpur
It is Levy's prerogative to invest his or Lewis' money in the club. You can or choose not to disagree with their decision not to plough their own money in to the club. But they're in the position to make these choices, and they took a long term view.
Sure, but I never argued it isn't their prerogative. Again, they're not frauds - they legitimately own the club, and they can do what they like with it.
But we're also free to have differing opinions on the wisdom of their choices, surely. That's that's our prerogative, one of the few we have left as fans.
@DubaiSpur
I would argue that any club without the infrastructure to maintain the long term investment that has tried to spend their way to getting to where we are, has failed. Everton didn't have any quick fix. Villa are gone. Sunderland are way gone. I would also say the whole 'spend quick' thing doesn't immediately work in terms of building a real time and building a culture. City needed a couple of goes to get it right. Chelsea needed a go with Ranieri before Mourinho came in. We tried it with the Bale money and it just didn't work, and we didn't have the bottomless pit of cash to just spend again. We needed to build. Our only chance of getting up was doing it in a long term, sustainable way.
Right, but who's arguing that we *shouldn't* spend on infrastructure?
My frustration is not that they're spending on infrastructure. It's that they have no affinity for spending any of their own money, even when just a little of it relative to what the stadium and the training ground have cost *us* (not them, us, the club) would have helped us on the pitch. Much like Liverpool's owners are doing.
And given that reality, that they absolutely will not give a single sh*t about on-pitch results when compared to their ultra-long term plan, I'm just not at all certain that they will actually spend on the team when the money starts coming in. They might just pay down the debt, because that would be the long-term thing to do - surely you can see the logic in that? After all, it's the long-term view.
