Basically agree with Neville minus the weird thing about it being a natural cycle. The cycle occurs because the decisions from the top down are crap.
However, I'm optimistic this summer was an inflection point for us as a club. I have been saying all summer that the players we've linked with have common threads in terms of age, that they'd all be making a step up from a lower club to the top level (in stature of club if not performance), style of play, and would not blow up our wage structure.
James, AWB, and Maguire all fit how Ole wants to play and the type of player he's looking for. So did Longstaff and Fernandes (assuming at some point there was genuine interest). Now what we need is for Woodward to actually get in a technical director to improve our recruitment in providing multiple options to address holes in the squad (i.e. we need another pivot CM so if Longstaff's valuation is way out of whack with what you think he's worth you can move on to another similar profile of player).
I genuinely believe if we'd added another CM the general view of this window overall would be much different than it currently is. We did well with the players we signed, but we needed to do more. It's not the worst, and it's not the best. That's still somewhat frustrating as a fan, but I think for once there's actually a plan and vision that the club feels committed to beyond "back the manager, give him loads of money, hope he picks the right players, and if he fails sack him".