Maybe in a year's time i'll look back at this post and be eating my word, I sure hope so because it will mean we'd have done well, but........
I am personally super frustrated with the way things have gone off-field since the take over. I'd had hoped we learnt the lesson from the early Abramovich days that turning over more than half of the squad in a 12 month period is a bad idea and never works (in terms of efficiency and not wasting massive sums of money).
It didn't work for us under Abramovich (early days) where half our new signings were duds nor our then current players like Petit who got completely frozen out of the first team and had little/no resale value.
It didn't work for Man City when they did it under new owners, not just the last time but the owners before that also came in with a nearly completely new squad at the time (yes they got there eventually, but they wasted so much money along the way).
It didn't work for Fulham when they replaced most of the squad when promoted to the premier league a few seasons back nor does it look like it's going to work for Nottingham Forrest this season.
What works is carefully chosen, well-picked and researched players that come in 2 maybe 3 each window (max) and offer an immediate and substantial enough upgrade to the player/s they are replacing that we can be confident they will get game time (injuries and other unforseen events permitting).
Newcastle is the exactly example in my mind of how it can be done right. Owners spent but they went quality over quantity, only buying when the player coming in was a significan upgrade over what was already there. It meant
1. more time to do proper due diligence on incoming signings and hence better success rate with those players
2. Less players coming and going meant a more steady team where players built and maintained familiarity better
3. they weren't chucking half their squad on the scrap heap, ensuring limited/minimals resale value and unecessary losses (bothj financial and FFP)
As I said at the start of the post, if i'm wrong and most/all of these signings turn out to all be masterstrokes of brilliant scouting and big successes i'll (gladly) eat my words. It's the reason why most people here I suspect feel a little like I do and somewhat agree with me but are probably going to say nothing right now and only complain after the fact (at the end of the season) when it's not gone well and it's turned out we've wasted most well over half a billion pounds to not much return (should it go that way).
Now I know what one of the arguments against what I'm saying above is going to be. "but Chelsea (early Ambramoch) and Man City (after last takeover) was a success because they brute forced the transfer market" making so many signings (of any good Premier League) players that 33-50%-whatever would be successful and they'd get to Champions League and elite club status at some point. And yuo'd be right.
However, there was no (or limited) FFP back then, throwing money around with such careless abandon these days is not a path to success unless you really do have unlimited funds (and even then, I still think the way Newcastle have gone about it has been better).
The other argument is "well it's not my money", to which i'd say sure, but if Bohley means what he says about sustainability and return on investment, then this spending isn't a not sustainable and would be better spent more gradually over the course of say 5 years than all in 1 followed by austerity the other 4. If we really are going to spend like this every single season from now till the end of pofessional football, then f**k it, brute force waste money all the way..........
