My biggest worry us that we haven't learned from the mistakes of last summer. Nothing to indicate one way or another yet, but so far the pattern is basically identical

mvila and some random defender i've never heard of. as an added bonus, i also predict we'll finish 4th next season.

I think 4th will be about right, we will improve, but so will the other 3 (Chelsea included). Will finish trophyless for the next dozen of seasons till we learn how to buy.

Learn how to buy....you mean "have more money."

This whole myth of Wenger's pile of gold is getting ridiculous.

No, I think it meant 'learn how to buy', or as I'd put it 'learn to competently manage a transfer window'.

The idea that Wenger effectively marshalls and maximises the resources available to him keeps coming back, and is pure revisionism.

Wait did everybody forgot we bought Podolski, and we are still only in May.

Wait till late July early August for your whining and bitching like a proper football supporter

He doesn't maximise our resources at all, he uses as little of them as possible because of how little there actually is. If he used all of our resources every transfer window we'd be proper fucked.

People bitch and moan about the way we spend money but its hindsight and revisionism on your end when you make claims that we "could have" bought this or that player or managed a window better, and its pure nonsense for any of us to claim that we know how much money we have. The most we can claim to know is that in comparison to the clubs directly above us in this country we are pitifully outmatched.

There isn't loads of room to maneuver. Players cost a bloody fortune. If WE want a player, they cost even more. Newcastle's "bargains," for instance, will dry up real fast if they manage top 4 for a couple seasons. They won't get away with it any more than we do now.

I really don't think some of you understand just how outmatched this club and others like us really are. Manchester City has the resources of an entire nation at its disposal. Real Madrid and Barca boast the same. Chelsea is close to having the same power. There is no pile of money, no mattress Wenger stuffs at night. There is no conspiracy.

It's true mate, but it's getting harder and harder to watch us going nowhere.

Hazard represents a £78m total investment over 5 years for Chelsea. It's absolutely astronomical. And he's not even in the real top tier in terms of wages. We just can't get near that, not if we want to run the club properly.

We're all getting so desperate for some success that we forget what we're up against.

I haven't done one of these 'slice and dice's' for years, but as I've got 15 minutes to kill whilst my phone recharges before I head for a run, here goes:

He doesn't maximise our resources at all, he uses as little of them as possible because of how little there actually is. If he used all of our resources every transfer window we'd be proper fucked.

This doesn't actually make sense. The argument has always been that Arsene spend what is available to him - one can only presume that he isn't given unlimited recourse to the club's funds and debt facilities without any scrutiny from above. Nobody's asked for this, nobody's suggested this.

If Arsene spent what was 'available to him', every summer, there'd simply be less available the next year, all other things being equal. We wouldn't be 'proper fucked', Tommy.

People bitch and moan about the way we spend money but its hindsight and revisionism on your end when you make claims that we "could have" bought this or that player or managed a window better, and its pure nonsense for any of us to claim that we know how much money we have. The most we can claim to know is that in comparison to the clubs directly above us in this country we are pitifully outmatched.

Straw man much? I don't think anybody's said we 'should have signed' X player, certainly not in the context of this thread. Pretty much everyone's taken a look at what Hazard has allegedly gone for, shrugged their shoulders, and moved on.

Sadly for you, the financial situation at the club is not such a great mystery as you seem to claim. We aren't inside, and we can't quite understand the business logic that goes into some of the decisions made at Arsenal (obviously), but there are plenty of people, on this forum, who have significant formal business experience, people who have formal and informal financial training, who can read published accounts, understand concepts around investment, funding and risk.

What we do, more or less, know from a footballing perspective is that almost every summer for the last 7-8 years, the club has received far more in fees incoming than has flowed out of the club. We have had strong indications that players have at least been bid for, even had bids accepted, for players who have ended up elsewhere whilst our own spending has faltered. We have left money in the bank many, many times over the years, window after window, moved slowly time after time, missed out on target after target.

All of this relies heavily on statements made by Arsenal, by other clubs, and in some cases journalists, so of course this is inherently unreliable, but nevertheless, there's not a jot of evidence in the formally audited, published and filed accounts published by the club that would contradict this view - all the actual evidence supports it.

There isn't loads of room to maneuver. Players cost a bloody fortune. If WE want a player, they cost even more. Newcastle's "bargains," for instance, will dry up real fast if they manage top 4 for a couple seasons. They won't get away with it any more than we do now.

Again, this is demonstrably untrue. We only have to look at Arsenal, and the sort of buys we've pulled off over the years in 4th place to know that talent is not unobtainable at a low price-point. Of course, this is a strange thing to point out given that the over-arching point is that we do not spend enough, but there is no reason at all to assume that Newcastle pay less for their players because they do not finish in the Champions League. There is no Europa league discount that selling clubs are obliged to offer teams that don't finish in the CL - only good scouting, and the ability to identify talent where the premium for 'star factor' is low. I don't actually believe it's as hard as all that at our level, especially if you fully take off the hype-glasses that most fans wear. Cost > ability is simply not a linear, objective equation. Just look at the Kagawa / Hazard situation this summer - he may be better overall (he may not be), but does anyone really think Hazard is worth 3 Kagawas?

I think, personally, there's a general assumption that managers (and clubs) don't get sucked into the hype-machine the same way as fans do, but personally I believe they do - read Moneyball (apologies Biggus), for a bit of insight about how 'star names' can become significantly over-valued in professional sport. It's harder to judge in a less quantitative sport, but nevertheless when Liverpool pay the sort of money for the types of players they do, it's easy to see that poor-quality scouting and general 'hype' is still rife throughout the game, and this will always create an advantage for a club that knows how to spot value.

This is where Newcastle have done so well this season, and indeed is what Wenger used to be so good at (and I believe would still be, if he didn't have such a draconian financial approach).

So what kind of signing are people generally looking for? Well, look at what we did in the days leading up to the summer transfer deadline day last year - we signed a number of high-end, but not world class, not over-hyped, extremely experienced players for reasonable sums of money, and pretty much rescued our season. Now personally, I think we could spend a little bit more on players than the £7-10m it took to obtain each of Arteta, Santos and Mertesacker, but personally I struggle to see how anyone could think that we'd be bankrupt now if we'd been following that strategy a bit more closely since 2005, rather than throwing prospect after prospect to the lions. We'd be in better shape now as a club, have a more balanced squad, and goodness knows, maybe we'd even have won a trophy or two. The players to help us, and the money to pay for them them, have always been there.

I really don't think some of you understand just how outmatched this club and others like us really are. Manchester City has the resources of an entire nation at its disposal. Real Madrid and Barca boast the same. Chelsea is close to having the same power. There is no pile of money, no mattress Wenger stuffs at night. There is no conspiracy.

Over-matched we may be, but until we actually start using what we do have at our disposal, there is nothing to moan about. As I've already said, there are numerous examples of summers where we've ostensibly left money unspent, and enough strength in our financial position to fund significantly more by way of core-business investment (i.e. spending some fucking money) than we actually do.

The point in the end is that we can't spend down our bank balance, and its not reasonable to suggest that we should do so. Spending what "we have" is a risk. The reason why we buy players like Squillaci is because we use them to fill needed positions in the squad and hope we don't have to use them. We can't operate like city and buy a starting quality player so that if our actual starters are out or lose form we just put in another player of the same level.

Your point about last season's window is well-taken. It is a much better strategy to sign the likes of Mert, Art, Santos, etc. to keep replenishing our squad with good to better-than-good players. The thing is, we were able to do so because of what we lost. I've said so many times that buying a player is not simply paying a one-time sum. Each of Art, Mert, and Santos are probably worth 20-25 MILLION pounds in terms of the total deal. We have to rely on continuing to generate cash at the same exact rate in order to spend everything (or close to it) on players each transfer window. No sane business would do this, and no sane business does (this includes the vast majority of football teams in the world). We only commit to what we can reasonably and safely assume we can afford over the course of a contract. Anything beyond this is a risk. We often take risks on players, but they are usually young ones, which offsets the potential loss with the potential resale value of the player.

Yea, we can change who we buy, and we can try to move "deadwood" on sooner. I agree. But we can't really spend any MORE than we already are without taking on risks that our board and our manager are not willing to take. I doubt any of us, if we were invested in the running of Arsenal, would be much different when the chips were down, especially when the success rate of big buy players is so low globally speaking. We have a mid-high failure rate in the current spending bracket that we inhabit. If we moved up a bracket, the losses would be absolutely huge, and we'd probably/maybe win one trophy. We probably couldn't maintain it, however.

The place where you are wrong is in assuming that because we bought Santos, Mert, Art, et al. last window is that we could have somehow done the same thing in every window leading up to it. We are growing in strength, not losing it (financially speaking) and we have been relying on the "youth project" to get us through a time when spending power would be extremely low. We are now past that period of low spending power, hence we spend more.

It's not mystery or mythology, or revisionism or even hindsight. What is imaginary is the idea that Wenger is sitting on a giant pile of cash he refuses to use.

Like I keep saying, criticize him for being a terrible coach. He's got the financial side of things pretty much down pat.

I think last summer was indicative of our situation, we're getting stronger in terms of buying power, but not strong enough to compete with those above us. We get deadlocked in no-mans land trying to retain our star players we invest so much into while simultaneously having to play long and hard to get the players we do actually want at a price that doesn't put them, as assets, "at risk."

Football is not about winning trophies, its about entertainment, which is a business, and businesses make money. Arsenal are in the frustrating position of having fans who expect to be entertained not simply by watching and supporting their team, but by watching and supporting their team winning things. Most clubs don't have that problem. The result is a fan base that is not entertained with a relatively successful business model. When entertainment comes at the cost of the business model, then you're basically fucked.

If I were them, I'd stick to my guns just like they are. Sure, to us fans it seems righteous, arrogant, idealistic, and downright off-pissing, but any one of us would probably do the same bloody thing.

So many things I disagree with there Coombs, but because it is late and I am tired I am only going to point this out: We choose to buy 2 decent players rather than 1 really good one. That shit needs to stop. We need top quality. Let the likes of Coquelin, Frimpong, AOC etc get a few more games than packing our squad with mediocre players.

Humble Rex wrote:

So many things I disagree with there Coombs, but because it is late and I am tired I am only going to point this out: We choose to buy 2 decent players rather than 1 really good one. That shit needs to stop. We need top quality. Let the likes of Coquelin, Frimpong, AOC etc get a few more games than packing our squad with mediocre players.

bingo. this is what spurs do, and is the reason we're about the same level as them these days.

Coombs wrote:

This whole myth of Wenger's pile of gold is getting ridiculous.

whatever helps you sleep at night.

Coombs wrote:

The point in the end is that we can't spend down our bank balance, and its not reasonable to suggest that we should do so. Spending what "we have" is a risk. The reason why we buy players like Squillaci is because we use them to fill needed positions in the squad and hope we don't have to use them. We can't operate like city and buy a starting quality player so that if our actual starters are out or lose form we just put in another player of the same level.

That we should spend our entire 'bank balance'? Whose point is that? It's not my point, and I don't recall anyone else saying otherwise.

The point is that we first spend according to our actual means, not well within them, which is where I firmly believe we are now, and what I believe the actual evidence we do have suggests. I understand the concept of 'self sufficiency' (or at least what I believe it means, not what the club do), I also understand the concept of having squad depth, and I understand that we aren't going to be in a position to have a 25 man that costs £250m+. I understand that we're going to have to take a punt on youngsters every now and then, and I understand that buying a super talented kid for £5-10m is realistically the only way we're going to be able to get the sort of talent that usually costs £35-40m when they're 23-24, albeit 5 years down the line (notwithstanding the point I made previously about hype).

None of these concepts are foreign to me, or indeed to most Arsenal fans. I understand that the owners at Manchester City, Chelsea, Utd, and to a certain extent Liverpool have made the sorts of funds available to their managers to spend that, realistically, we are unlikely to see here for some time.

No, the issue I have with your central theme is that it seems to be a conflation of two similar but distinct arguments - one of which is valid, and one of which is not. On one hand, you argue that no matter how much we spend, we aren't going to be able to compete financially with the Citys & Chelseas of our league. I agree with this, and at no point do I believe that I've disagreed with that.

On the other, you make a suggestion that we are currently spending at the optimal level, the only level we could spend at to guarantee financial security. I'm going to start using the word 'optimal' in this conversation, I think, because it gives a clearer meaning than the word 'maximal' that I've been using before, and seems to have been somewhat misinterpreted. This latter point I think is entirely unsupported in the extent to which you use it, and runs contrary to pretty much all the evidence we actually do have.

Your point about last season's window is well-taken. It is a much better strategy to sign the likes of Mert, Art, Santos, etc. to keep replenishing our squad with good to better-than-good players. The thing is, we were able to do so because of what we lost. I've said so many times that buying a player is not simply paying a one-time sum. Each of Art, Mert, and Santos are probably worth 20-25 MILLION pounds in terms of the total deal. We have to rely on continuing to generate cash at the same exact rate in order to spend everything (or close to it) on players each transfer window. No sane business would do this, and no sane business does (this includes the vast majority of football teams in the world). We only commit to what we can reasonably and safely assume we can afford over the course of a contract. Anything beyond this is a risk. We often take risks on players, but they are usually young ones, which offsets the potential loss with the potential resale value of the player.

Fundamentally disagree here. A 'sane' business is one that understands the core drivers behind it's revenue streams, and invests at the heart of the business to ensure that the revenue streams can grow in future. Maintaining operating costs, of course, is a key function of any business, but take a look at the FTSE100 right now. It's hardly an opportune time, but look at the businesses in there - are these companies who have are marked by a solid track record of cost control over the last 25 years, but are selling broadly the same shit they were in the 80s? Or do you see companies that have invested, adapted, poured millions upon millions into their core business, into R&D, into finding new ways to get ahead of the game?

I don't even really like the concept of Arsenal as a business. 'Business' is what I do 9-5 (or more usually 8-8!), football and Arsenal are not in that category from a fan's perspective. The reality is, to peel one layer away from that metaphor, Arsenal are in the business of entertainment, and to peel away another, they're simply a tribal badge that men wear. I don't care, throughout the season, quite how much profit or loss Arsenal make. I care about Arsenal competing on the field, and, insofar as it affects that primary aim, I care about them competing off it. If what Arsenal are doing is preventing them from competing, they need to look into new ways of getting that done. Arsenal are not there to announce profits as far as I'm concerned, and every penny of profit we make is, as far as I'm concerned (and yes, I know this is simplistic), money that SHOULD have been invested back into the playing squad. Because if our finances aren't helping the playing squad, I couldn't give two fucks about profit. I'm investing my emotions into the team, not my money (at least insofar as I don't expect a return in kind on the latter).

But we can't really spend any MORE than we already are without taking on risks that our board and our manager are not willing to take.

I honestly don't see any evidence to suggest that the board and manager are correct in their decisions. To me, it looks like the policy of hyper-conservatism that they adopted 7 years ago, and has since become the MO is now a comfortable ground for all involved in the financial decisions at the club, particularly while we are still clinging onto our Champions League status.

We have a mid-high failure rate in the current spending bracket that we inhabit. If we moved up a bracket, the losses would be absolutely huge, and we'd probably/maybe win one trophy. We probably couldn't maintain it, however.

Again, disagree. Winning a trophy will directly and indirectly impact our revenue streams. Make absolutely no mistake about it - every single penny that comes into the club, comes in because of what happens on the pitch. Our playing staff may be our short-term biggest cost-base, but long term they are the ones that will determine how much money we get from gate receipts, how much money we win in prize-money, how much we get from our sponsors, how much we sell them for when Barcelona and Manchester City come calling. It's a question of risk-reward. You may be happy watching an ultra-conservative business with a fairly flimsy model (more on that in a minute) maintain economic sensibility. I, on the other hand, see a team that is not investing in it's core purpose, not showing the ambition I'd like to see as a fan, and taking enormous risks with it's long-term position.

Why do I call our model flimsy? Back in 2005, if Spurs had stuck to the salad bar, Arsenal might have been out of the Champions League. Every single penny Wenger saved the club by refusing to invest that summer when he'd just received a tidy chunk for Patrick Vieira would have gone up in smoke in about 90 minutes. Likewise this season, a Ben Foster injury would have more than eliminated the profits we were left with the summer before following the sale of two of our crown jewels.

Is this really our long-term strategy? To sit around aiming for 4th, and hoping nobody overtakes us? Because unless falling out of the Champions League initiated some kind of strategic paradigm shift, it's very hard to see us getting back for a long, long time. If we are to refuse to compete, in the long term, we're dead anyway. I'd much rather see us go for it now and get it over with - either it works, or it doesn't, and if it doesn't we work out what to do about it at that point.

But again, I digress. Whilst I'd be happier to see the club go all-in than continue to sit on their arses and market 2nd best as a success (whilst happily asking the fans to cough up for the privilege), their failure to do so isn't what gets me riled up, or really what my broader argument is for. It gets back to the original point you're trying to make, a point which is still, as far as I can see is still not really supported by the evidence.

The place where you are wrong is in assuming that because we bought Santos, Mert, Art, et al. last window is that we could have somehow done the same thing in every window leading up to it. We are growing in strength, not losing it (financially speaking) and we have been relying on the "youth project" to get us through a time when spending power would be extremely low. We are now past that period of low spending power, hence we spend more.

The signings of Mertesacker, Santos, Arteta, Park, Gervinho and Oxlade were not funded by 'the club getting stronger'. They were more than funded by the sales of Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, and whatever pittances we picked up for the likes of Eboue, Traore, Emmanuel-Thomas etc, with, almost certainly another hefty chunk left on the side that we declined to re-invest into the squad. I agree - we are getting stronger. We have been for some time, and that's reflected in the balance sheet position, as well as the profits we regularly make. We are well capable of making 'Arteta-level' signings, and have been throughout for the 7 year period I've been criticising Arsenal for failing to actually make that spending. We were making bids for high-profile players back then too. We know this, because our bids were confirmed by the clubs that received them. We missed out, the players went elsewhere, and we decided (with disastrous consequences) to try to muddle through. It's a philosophy Wenger adopted around about 2005, and it's a philosophy that's continuing today.

It's not mystery or mythology, or revisionism or even hindsight. What is imaginary is the idea that Wenger is sitting on a giant pile of cash he refuses to use.

Ok - where did the rest of the Nasri, Clichy, and Fabregas money go? We took in around £70m in receipts last summer. Arteta, Mertesacker, Santos, Gervinho, Park and Oxlade cost around £50m between them. Where did the phantom £20m end up? Fag packet calculations, as they are (the 'Player Trading' number in the interim accounts that represents likely represents the up-front recognition of transfer fees, as well as the amortisation of future contingent clauses, suggests a far higher profit from this item alone). Let's figure out where all that cash disappeared to, then we'll work backwards from there. Pretty soon, we'll understand what happened to the Robinho and Craptista money, I'm sure.

What's more, what do you think would have happened if Nasri and Cesc had decided at the last minute to stay? We'd have been missing a large chunk of money we'd have otherwise have made - would that have put us in financial peril? Would we have spent the last few days of the transfer window peddling van Persie to anyone that'd wave £25m in our faces, just to stave off the danger of financial ruin?

Football is not about winning trophies, its about entertainment, which is a business, and businesses make money. Arsenal are in the frustrating position of having fans who expect to be entertained not simply by watching and supporting their team, but by watching and supporting their team winning things. Most clubs don't have that problem.

Football is a lot of things to a lot of people, but I can tell you one thing for sure, a LOT of clubs do have that problem (I can't believe you'd even choose those terms, but still) - namely, almost all of those we play against every year in the so-called 'Champions League'. If that's the table we want to dine at, those are our peers - not the Swanseas, the Norwichs, or indeed the Leeds Utds that we so often get compared to in fear.

The result is a fan base that is not entertained with a relatively successful business model. When entertainment comes at the cost of the business model, then you're basically fucked.

I'm not entertained by the business model? To bloody right I'm not.

If I were them, I'd stick to my guns just like they are. Sure, to us fans it seems righteous, arrogant, idealistic, and downright off-pissing, but any one of us would probably do the same bloody thing.

Wrong. Most fans would not do the same thing. That's why most clubs are not run like Arsenal.

Holy shit. Takes a lot for me to say tl;dr ...

I'll come back and wade through this later.

asa said running the club responsibly is great, but we factually have the money to spend much more than we have. football clubs are meant to win, and clubs of our stature are meant to win trophies - profit means nothing. wenger and the board need to show more ambition, as we've been a salad bar or a ben foster injury away from wiping out all the transfer profits over this entire period of parsimony. investing more into the first team (responsibly) does not automatically take us down the slippery slope of leeds and rangers to financial ruin - it would just bring us in line with our peers in the CL (inter, bayern, chelsea, etc).

all of which is undeniably true.

Oddly enough, I think I agree with you both on most things.

Transfers and squad management:

I don't think Wenger does a bad job of managing the squad, and I don't think he (or he solely) sets transfer expenditure.

I reckon he operates within parameters set by the board and owners - a romantic might argue that he should press them for more spending, but that wouldn't be good governance overall.

We don't have deep pockets to spend on packages like Hazard's season after season. I think we all recognise that.

But all things being equal regarding expenditure, I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, as Asa says, the club as a whole has not been performing at a "league best" level signing and developing players. Our scouting network seems to consistently miss good prospects, we've signed more than a few damp squibs, and we've trained up a few as well.

Last summer was an unusually bad one in terms of how poorly organised we were. The management team (and especially Wenger) seemed to harbour many unrealistic views concerning the futures of Cesc and Nasri, and responded late and haphazardly to their departures.

We cost ourselves probably 5-10 points in the first few weeks of the season with that bullshit, and that to me is an unforgiveably poor summer transfer season.

We simply have to do better this time around, but the signs are worrying: there is a cloud of emotional bullshit over Van Persie, who we're trying to re-sign by relying on his loyalty, and we are just as paralysed waiting for our big-spending rivals to play their cards.

Our overall wealth and profile as a club, and what it means:

There's both correlation and the strictest separation between "growth in our revenue streams" and meeting or exceeding supporter expectations of "ambition" and "success". Us becoming a much bigger club would probably see both fulfilled for a while, but those expectations are ultimately only a temporarily attainable emotional goal, a splinter of the larger problem of personal happiness for each fan.

So how do we grow? Asa mentioned "risk and reward", which is an interesting point. "Reward" in football terms is a discontinuous phenomenon. We basically have two tiers of success at the moment:

• First tier: we consistently qualify for the CL and acquire the associated revenue and profile
• Second tier: we win major trophies and acquire the associated revenue and profile

Our good fortune has been that there are enough (3.5) CL places granted to the PL for us to consistently qualify despite the presence over time of City, Chelsea and United plus challengers in the PL. If there weren't, or if there were other clubs spending Chelsea/City level money, obviously we would have struggled.

But the status quo is that we are in that first tier.

I think it's fair to say that the commercial rewards for initially making it to the next level of success are slightly nebulous compared to those of our current level. There is no new competition to enter with guaranteed matches and revenue, and the prize money differentials are not game changers.

The spending required to reach that level is considerable in today's transfer market. Can't see any way we can win the PL at the moment without spending hugely on our squad. We would need equivalents of (for example) Mata, Aguero, and Alves and to keep all our current players for starters. We would be making a considerable loss if we spent what we needed to get there, and maintain over a few seasons.

The real reward of reaching that level would be to gradually close the large gap in commercial revenues between us and our established rivals (eg United, Madrid, Barcelona). This would require sustained success, but we have the platform to achieve it in terms of history, location, and basic profile. We're the best and most reputable club in the biggest city in the country that hosts the world's most popular football league: we ought to be massive. All the "intangibles" of our club really couldn't be that much better given our level of success.

What should we do?

Firstly, we should get our scouts, our commercial management and our manager on the mark and keep them there. I think Wenger should go to achieve this. He has stagnated in charge and we need change.

If hypothetically, we're 100m short of the squad we need to challenge convincingly for the PL, but our position is "sustainable" - we can make money while holding on to CL qualification - we could aim to save up that 100m (or 200m, or whatever) and then risk it over 2-3 seasons to get ahead and stay ahead of our current position. If there's an angel investor who's willing to take on the risk for us, so much the better.

Ideally this should happen with a timeliness that allows us to renegotiate our present, low return sponsorship deals from a position of strength.

We probably shouldn't spend more heavily than we need to to sustain CL qualification unless modelling suggests we will, in fact, win a league title. Money spent on players in a season we don't win is money wasted. A climb from 3rd/4th to 2nd is money wasted.

It's implausible to me that there is currently any "optimal" season by season spending level which is both sustainable (ie not greater than our current revenue) and enough to win us major trophies. We would basically be looking at over-spending as a loss leader to (hypothetically) establish ourselves in a different revenue bracket, alongside, say, United, who presently bring in 50-100m / season more than us in commercial revenues.

One could argue, cynically, that even a one-off climb from 3rd to 1st is money wasted. Apart, of course, from the transient emotional benefits to us as fans.

Are we vulnerable? Yes, very. If another big spending club shows up, we're fucked unless FFP can be enforced, which is doubtful. If that happens, it's quite possible our only reliable route back to the top would be to be bought out by a spendthrift tycoon. This means that we cannot afford unlimited patience.