The real problem with the Sancho deal isn't even whether he was the answer or not. It's the fact that it's yet another summer spent chasing a target all summer that we didn't get. How often do you see big clubs chase someone for so long and not get them, we do it all the time. The deal should have been shut down one way or another ages ago, either paying what they wanted or moving on and securing someone else, we did neither.
Also for all the talk of the defence being a shambles right now, and it is, at the end of the last season defensively we had pretty much the best record in the league. The whole team is a complete shambles right now, not just the defence. The front players are hardly lighting it up, and we haven't had a proper RW in years now.
Yep. Blowing £108m (or whatever the latest mind-boggling figure is) on Sancho would be a big mistake.
Just scan, for example, the Prem clubs who finished mid-table or lower last season (they all pretty much need money). If you actually have £108m to spend this window, then you could have had your pick of several good defenders and CMs. Now it's too late, but January is another chance.
And what reason to think they would do any better than what is already there exactly. Wan-Bissaka, Maguire, Shaw were all effectively plucked this way, and it's still a shambles, so no reason to think doing this would solve the issue at all.