Quincy Abeyie wrote:
I think he meant less strength in depth relative to if we'd made the CL, not relative to our current depth.
Yeah, that's what I meant. It's reasonable to sign players who are willing to come for a Europa campaign, because there are many who wouldn't prefer it, and if it at least notionally means strengthening areas of weakness while restraining ourselves from fruitless pursuit of some targets that's normal.
This seems to be the KSE reality at the moment. They are pushing along at a boring pace but they're pushing and doing it somewhat rationally. They set out to get to roughly where we are now last summer, and they've endorsed the incremental progress that has been seen. The next test of their appetite is if they're willing to set a higher bar for our performances from here, and replace Arteta (or Edu) if it's not reached.
I've said it before but I prefer this approach to their role to what we became used to under Wenger, which was all negatively framed: how little we could invest and still be competitive, as opposed to how much we should invest to become competitive.
I'm feeling disappointed at the moment, still processing this season's pending anticlimax, but I'm glad to hear that our owners still aspire for us to improve.
