I'm all in favour of us having tried. It's a bit like us wedging Guimarães out of Newcastle despite him notionally not being available. We seem to be getting a better albeit older Newcastle midfielder than Spurs for £20m less, and I'd call it clout paying off.
The contrast with Madrid is clarifying. We want to be in Madrid's position in European football. We want to already have Vinicius Jr under contract, and to be the mega-club Vinicius Jr doesn't really want to leave. To make it all happen Arsenal needs European trophies, increased revenues, and players as good as Vinicius Jr. For any of those things to become a habit, all of those things will need to happen, and for any of those things to happen, Arsenal needs to act as if all of them will.
If Vinicius Jr isn't working out, then I'm hoping our next move will be for another marquee forward nobody thought we could ever get, Álvarez standing out as the next unattainable object.
Supposing we don't get any of these galacticos, I don't think chasing them and failing harms us unless our results on the pitch decline. So we've got all our regular transfer business to keep on with, but I'm more than happy with these attempts to level up. I'll be worried if we start to allocate our funds to squad maintenance signings which is what the likes of Rogers feel like.
