As long as it's not taken out of the club I don't really care too much where it goes. We've got a model that works and we'll probably have to stick with it for a few more years.
We do spend big on individual players, Soldado and Lamela comes to mind and one of them was definitely the manager's top priority.
As with most of yesterday's snarling back-and-forths, we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. It's not taken out of the club: that's the most I'm willing to concede to Levy. Beyond that, if the aim of our club is to constantly maintain forward progress and to mount a serious challenge for the CL spots every season, then on recent evidence this strategy doesn't help at all.
You can't do what we're trying to do on the cheap, not in this league. I've given up on Levy realising this, and my only hope now is that Poch stays contented here and surmounts the obstacles placed in his way to achieve what we want to see despite the board and despite this summer's serious setbacks.
had we signed Wellbeck Dubai im wondering whether you'd still have it down as not backing the manager as his apparent first choice was Rodriguez?
I would be to a certain degree, despite my appreciation for Welbeck as a player. I look at this sort of thing holistically: did we secure the manager's primary target this summer, making compromises on the rest easier to digest? If we did, a signing like Welbeck becomes more bearable given that we brought in who the manager wanted most without quibbling. If we didn't, then securing another second or third-choice target (however talented) seems a bit less appealing. And ending up without a LWF at all (clearly one of the manager's priorities this summer) as has now happened to us...well, that's even less appealing.
I don't think we'll get either Rodriguez or Schneiderlin in January, or indeed ever. Bigger clubs will gazump us on both the fee and the wages offered to the two, and their ardent desire to join Poch at this club won't be nearly as strong by then as their desire to just secure 150k-200k a week at Arsenal, Chelsea, United or Liverpool and get the hell outta St.Mary's. Our chance was this summer, and we blew it. So we'll end up searching for second-choice targets anyway, which is frustrating.
Ah, screw it. Both this board and the folks over at the Fighting **** saw the heights of fan discontent at Levy and co.'s transfer policy yesterday, and today seems like just the gloomy aftermath of that. It's still simmering under the surface, but I'd rather just forget about the possibility of Levy backing any of our managers from now on and just focus on appreciating the job Poch does with the tools that he has got. I hoped otherwise, that this summer would see a change when it came to Levy backing his new men. I was a fool to think that. Life goes on, and it won't dampen my support for the elements of this club that aren't Daniel Levy's transfer policy and managerial relationships.