I will reserve praise for how we line up first week in September. We have bought in 45m in sales so far this summer and spent about 17 so far. The strides of the pitch are very good but we need to invest another 30m on the pitch fit them to have any meaningful footing as they will be in the championship if we don't.
I don't like seeing things like "If we don't spend another £xm we're fucked" because that's a symptom of the problem. If you're badly organised and have no vision then you need to spend big money every summer to stay still but there are enough clubs in the top leagues across Europe who's net spend since the turn of the millenium is virtually nil to show that oit's not the only way to be. If this summer we spend another £15m on 2 players but both fit exactly what we need (let's say Oubare and Praet for example) and they're part of a side that finishes 10th then we've spent enough. The key things is that will fill the gaps in the squad properly, I really don't care how much it costs to do that and I don't see that it matters. Hell if Sherwood decided that Andre Green was ready to come in and be Benteke's replacement and it proved to be correct then fucking brilliant, even if that means we didn't bother signing another striker at all.
I can see where you are coming from and I agree, and take back the money spent, but would maintain that we need to bring at least 4 more players of the quality of Amavi and Guere' reported quality or we will be in big trouble. I like Fox, I like the fact we have a sporting director and I like that we are looking like with Reilly we actually have some semblance of common sense about the way we are targeting players coming in, but we finished 17th, and lost 6-1, 0-1, 4-0 in our final 3 games, with the players who are yet to be replaced, and we are 3 weeks from the season kicking off. Building a team behind the scenes is a great step forward, but it has to be matched on the pitch. I think it has at coaching level now, and scouting finally, but the team has to show the fruit of that machine.
See now I agree with you, it's the constant referencing to a total net spend that some people always go back to that annoys me. I think there comes a point where the amount you spend makes a difference but I think we're a long way from reaching that and trying to overspend to get there only really works if you can afford to get it wrong and rip it up and spend the same again, otherwise you do what a few clubs have and you go to the wall (or close).
