Thats because it probably hasn't occurred to you that the teams above us (apart from Everton) are using that approach - the only difference being they can afford vastly bigger sums than us which means we aren't going to be catching them up anytime soon.
The key to us winning the league is spending our money more smartly than our rivals. Or to put it in basic terms for you - to buy players who are currently undervalued rather that he flavour of the month that everyone is raving about and we can't afford anyway. Even if Mikkitango ends up winning us the league, the only way we will have been able to accommodate him is if we have saved money on two or three smart purchases elsewhere in the team.
Are you honestly, seriously suggesting that Allen was UNDER-valued at £15m, Borini UNDER-valued at £11m, Henderson UNDER-valued at £16m, Downing UNDER-valued at £20m? do you call that "spending more smartly than our rivals"?
If this were truly our policy, and we were absolutely skint, then it would at least be honest if we went around spending £2m or £3m on unknown players who could potentially be big stars. We could say "that's all we can afford, sorry." But it's not what we're doing. We spent £25m on Allen and Borini alone last summer. Is that "spending smartly"?
You say "apart from Everton;" they paid £5m last summer for Mirallas.
Be honest: you've got two options and you can only go with one, which do you pick?
A) Mirallas for £5m
B) Allen and Borini for £25m?
Which would have added more to our team this season?
Don't come with this bollocks of teams above us blowing us out of the water with their money. We have spent close to £150m in the last three years alone. The problem is 95% of that £150m was spent on garbage. And NOT smartly.
And you're telling me that in fact we paid UNDER what we should have for the awful players we have signed. F***ing hell.
...buy players who are currently undervalued rather that he flavour of the month that everyone is raving about and we can't afford anyway. Even if Mikkitango ends up winning us the league, the only way we will have been able to accommodate him is if we have saved money on two or three smart purchases elsewhere in the team.
"flavour of the month"? "mikkitango"? "Mikkitargaryen"? Are you on a wind-up mate? You think Mkhitaryan is a "flavour of the month"? Just because you haven't been watching him over the last few years doesn't means he's the "flavour of the month." You probably would have said the same thing about Suarez. And yea, it's definitely those "smart purchases" that we'd have to sacrifice. Again, we spent £25m on two players last season who contributed the sum total of sweet F**k all. Those were NOT smart purchases. No matter what you think of them as players, there is not a single soul here who would sincerely justify the fees we paid for those players. Not one.
A "smart" purchase is paying for players who we know have an extremely high likelihood of stepping in right away and contributing. There was never, ever, even a single person who was certain that Allen or Borini would step in right away and be consistent contributors, even before they signed for us. If that's the case, if we are going to be taking huge risks on players, then we should not be spending more than £4-5 on them. Maximum. The risk is too high, and we don't have the money to lose. We shouldn't be paying £15m or upwards on any players other than those who have already shown what they can do at the highest level. Mkhitaryan has absolutely dominated the Ukrainian league, a very physical, brutal league, and has run riot in the CL over some of the best sides in the world. Will he be a guaranteed success? nope. But based on what he has done, there is a much higher likelihood that he will succeed than other players we have signed who had shown NOTHING before us signing them.
It's never a "smart purchase" to buy awful players. If they're not good enough to start for us in a pinch then they're not good enough, even for the "squad." Go out and buy players with top skills who are willing to come to us. Suarez came. Coutinho came. It can happen. But don't bring up this bollocks about Mkhitaryan etc taking money away from other "smart" purchases. We spent £60m on Downing, Henderson, Borini and Allen in the last few years. Did you read that properly? £60m. None of those were "smart" purchases. Imagine what we could have done with that money. Look at this brilliant post from a few weeks ago:
I get where you're coming from and have never understood the don't change argument when in my view an upgrade is an upgrade and you can be damn sure a better player will get more out of those around him than keeping hold of an average one for the sake of not changing. That "stability" argument has never really made sense and the "depth" argument even worse. No point having a squad full of sh*te, we had that under Hodgson, nobody was arguing we were operating from a position of strength then.
He's bang on the money. If the squad is full of 10-15 players, none of whom are good enough, then what the hell does it matter, how "deep" the squad is, if they are all awful?!
If you really do support the CLUB, then you should be a hell of a lot more critical of our transfers, EXACTLY for the reasons you mentioned. We can't afford to waste money, because our owners are not rich sugar daddies. Each transfer that is exorbitantly over-priced and overwhelmingly unconvincing on the field sets the CLUB back, not only the on pitch product. Because we don't always have that money to go buy a better player. Then the top players we have left want to bail, and we start to sink deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until we're left with the mediocre signings we bought in order to COMPLEMENT the top players, but then we find ourselves stuck with the mediocre signings only, because the top players have left!
Seriously. Some people need to take a long hard look at what is good for the club in the long run. Anyone who thinks that £60m on the aforementioned players was money spent "smartly" needs to take a look in the mirror.
