QuincyAbeyie but giving players time to integrate in isn't sacrificing anything, it's just giving them time. There's no player that doesn't need some amount of time. You're basically saying that signing new players will sacrifice titles, which obviously isn't true.
What you might be getting at is the idea of replacing players, which is something different. Not all signings are replacements. Havertz replaced Xhaka in our tier 1 group, which requires time for integration. Our tier 1 group was thin last year, so some amount of destabilization is inevitable. If we had kept Xhaka, I think we'd have seen a more stable transition, even if it might have taken longer due to having less minutes to go around. I prefer the way it actually happened, although I don't think Arteta got the timing quite right in the course of this season.
We tried to shore up our defensive capacity, lost a lot in attack, and Havertz got flack (unfairly, in my opinion) for being the new guy with a price tag. Rice got away with it because we were focusing on defense, and that plays into both his strengths and the way he is perceived. It plays into Havertz's strengths as well, but his reputation and perceived position led to people judging him on a different standard (which, again, I think was unfair). His role(s) are more important than his nominal position, and I think it was clear from the moment he put on the shirt that he had the tools to grow into those roles.
Our lack of goal scoring started to become a real problem that was affecting our results, so Arteta tried to take off the proverbial handbrake. It didn't work, in part because everyone was in such terrible goal-scoring form (a problem I believe Arteta inadvertently created). We ended up losing games we couldn't afford to, while setting records for attacking stats like touches in the opposition box, etc. The team lost confidence, and basically had a collective breakdown leading to the Fulham game and the FA cup exit. Whatever we did in Dubai, it reset the team, broke our duck, and unlocked our attack such that we could add some panache to our newfound emphasis on defensive solidity. I also think periodization plays a big role here, despite some of the claims made on this forum. Physical preparedness ties into mental preparedness, and the effect of fatigue (of either kind) on execution cannot be overstated.
I think the intent was right, the overall strategy was right, but the execution was a bit (typically) extreme from Arteta and the pit crew. We overdid the defensive solidity thing, and we might have overdone the periodization thing as well. We also got a bit unlucky, both in terms of variance and squad fitness. The West Ham and Villa losses were both ridiculous in terms of sheer luck, but I also think they could've been avoided by a less extreme correction from the end of last season. It got to our heads, and resulted in the losses at Fulham and Liverpool. The loss at Newcastle was just refereeing robbery.
That is what has compromised our season and led to us trailing our main competitors for the title, not Kai Havertz replacing Xhaka in the squad. We haven't sacrificed a title for him any more than we have for Rice or anyone else. It just so happens that his integration period happened in parallel with other strategic adjustments, but correlation does not equal causation.
