Zedie wrote:
Sorry, I really don't see a difference here. If we had spent 300m this summer but ended up 4th, how many of you in here would be going 'ah, at least we tried' at the end of the season?
Buzz words in every post for the summer would include:
4th place trophy
No trophies
Wenger out
No tactics
Specialist in failure
Lost the team
Enya
Midtable club
Scared of success
Should have signed x
'At least we tried' would be labelled an excuse.
4th place after heavily investing would be a step back, not progress.
You don't see how a legitimate title challenge where we just miss out is different from scraping 4th place over Spurs on the last day of the season or finishing 15+ points behind the leader?
For example, in 11/12 Man United missed out on the title based on goal difference, we missed out on it by 19 points. Can you not see how their season was different from ours?
If we challenge for the title and narrowly missed out no one could complain as it would mean we did our best to win it; aiming for 4th from the outset is the problem.
Zedie wrote:4th place after heavily investing would be a step back, not progress.
I think you misunderstood me; I'm not saying we should spend x amount of money and come 4th the same as always, I'm saying if we spent x amount of money we would've challenged for the title and been in the top 4 regardless - we may not have won, but we could finish 2nd or something.
Spending heavily and coming 4th would be pointless; we could do it without spending. If we spent heavily it would be done with the intention of winning the title, and if we fall short, we fall short - but at least we did all we could to win. That's all you can ask.
No level of spending can guarantee you the title, but you can guarantee you'll win nothing if you spend nothing.