Thats the problem they have had though because of being a smaller club than the bigger clubs.
They build but when they have one bad season players dont trust that it will be sorted and the fck off to United, City, Real, Barca.
Even if they finish 3rd they will have problems getting some players to stay as other bigger clubs will be in for them.
It's a matter of whether Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas can sort it out and get the players to trust him. As you said there is a spine that will stay. But if next year they dont continue to stay in top four or win things then they could just lose players like Dembele, Bale, Vertonghen, Sandro to the big European clubs.
Liverpool have sorta had the opposite problem in the last 4 years or that. We are a big club with a big pulling power but without champions league football we can't get some players to commit and choose us over others. That is why spurs have gotten stronger than us but as I said it will probably only be temporary unless Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas does a brilliant job(which im sure he can)
We can still attract brilliant players despite being out of the champions league such as Suarez. We havnt been in the champions league since 2010 which is 3 years ago and we likely wont be in it next year. But as soon as we get back in it again I am sure that we would have a better chance of staying in there than Spurs do. The got into it in 2010-2011 and were brick.
This summer is huge for Spuds. They could keep their team and sign 3-4 very good players , maybe one huge player and go after the title and cups next year. Or they could lose Bale, maybe Dembele or others. And just slip out of the top four.