- Apr 1, 2005
- 41,363
- 74,893
No I think you are missing the point, after moving up from around the mid table area to the coat tails of top four we have pretty much trod water for 7 years on fifth, sure Harry got us to one CL and was cruelly denied a second, but the reality is that to get regular CL much less make a serious challenge for the title or indeed winning the CL you need a balanced team with realk quality and a depth of quality in the squad. In the past years our weaknesses in certain key areas and in the depth of quality and those failings have meant we have missed out. Now at times you can buy young players of real potential and with resale potential to enable us to afford more new replacements if they leave, but the fact of the matter is those quality players that ideally you wish to keep to give a fair crack at regular CL football and to seriously challenge have moved on and still we have failed to fill the team with a balance and quality necessary. You then reach a critical stage where you need to decide if you continue to tread water or go for it and if you decide you want to go for it then sometimes you have to fill the key gaps with players that can deliver now rather than maybe 2 years time when maybe one or two other existing key players have left. It's not a matter of simply signing potential that can prove good in a year or two years and ultimately sell for big profits but to get one or two players that you can have far greater belief that they can affect things now. Obviously every new signing is a gamble but when you go for players that have proven their quality over a number of seasons then the odds are stacked better in your favour than a player who has done it once or maybe not really done it at all but looks to have the potential too
The benefits can outweigh the costs too, if we had bought Soldato last season or Negredo for say £25 mill and this season earned £35 mill from CL then not only would we have made a tidy profit but also have a fully paid striker for the following three years. As it is we still have to pay for a striker now and have no CL revenue
There are other factors and I imagine things like raising funding, sponsorship, naming rights etc are possibly in the mind of the board right now, far easier to raise funds when you have one of the top names in football playing for you and far better still if you are seen to be competing against the best teams in the world.
At the end of the day the success of a football club is measured by it's trophy cabinet not it's balance sheet, for sure it's an important part but you can't get hung up on focussing on players that might make a long term profit and lose sight of players that can give you shorter term success
Maybe we didn't have the money last year?