What's changed?

[paulcomben]

Agreeing with this string. I decided to give up my ST for work reasons, before the micky mouse search for a manager, which means that we have infuriated the enemy, but also the club most likely to provide us with a keeper and centre back. I thought it would be a real wrench, but it is certain that the football on view next season will be no better than the mid- range of MON's days. Conceding 2 late goals to Stoke, kinda stuff.

[Phil from the upper holte]

The bent money came from the sale of milner. I've got a feeling we won't get the marquee signing. Time will tell but if randy doesn't put money in then I'd rather he sell up

[Eigentor]

Granted, plenty has. But on the fundamental question of our ability to compete with the best for the top prizes, where do we stand vis a vis the Doug era?

Seems to me, not much has changed. We sell our best players; we ask managers to sell to buy new ones; we give the impression we don't want to go the extra yard to compete for the top prizes; we patronise fans with a lot of flannel about our "ambitions"; managers and players leave/want to leave stating/implying all the above.

Your thoughts.

In terms of competing with the best, we're worse off than we were under Ellis (at least in the best years). That's because the top four is more engulfed than ever, and it seems as if you need Man City style resources if you want to come up from behind. The Ajax model mentioned last summer when we appointed GH last summer could have been worth a try, but it now seems as if that was a whim rather than a new strategy. Even so, Arsenal find it difficult staying in the top four employing that model; it's probably even more difficult getting there that way.

[mozza]

Well we're not having players leaving who cite ambition and then join West Ham or Boro anymore, so progress of sorts from the latter end of the Herbert era.

Unfortunately, until we nail a CL place ourselves we're one of many clubs vulnerable to losing our best players to sides directly above us. One minor consolation may be that after Downing -and possibly Bent- I can't see any of the players currently on our books attracting that kind of attention again for a while. So we might actually have a bit of breathing space to build.

This for me is the 'nailed on' correct explanation of where we are - yes we would all like to break into the top4 but our
exploits in the Uefa mickey mouse competition proved we haven't the resources to compete - 

[eamonn]

The gap has got too big during Lerner's tenure. I wonder how we would have fared had he been at the helm a decade earlier.

A decade earlier Doug was investing a similar amount in the squad as Lerner has, in relative terms.

Hmm...you reckon? Irrespective of investment similarities (and even stretching ''relative terms'' to as realistic a meaning as possible, I reckon Lerner has been more generous), I think throughout the 90's we were in a realistic position to be contenders. Under Randy we got back there (contenders now being diluted to mean good enough to finish 4th) between 2008-'10 but have since lost that momentum.

If we'd had more of a window of opportunity this time round like which existed between '92-'00 (only United and then Arsenal towards the end of the decade were what could be classed as insurmountable compeition), I reckon we could have achieved something. That we failed to do so in the 90's was largely due to having micro-thinking Doug in charge.

[Matt Collins]

We could have not signed Davies and cuellar and bought Bent instead. A front 6 of Milner, Barry, petrov - downing, bent, young would be top 4 material IMHO.

[Nirog72]

I agree with Matt