I think, you can argue all night and day about how much has been invested by the club, but what we can't argue is that Mourinho has been given a substantial sum to spend in the transfer market since he's been here, has it been enough? That's up for debate, but for me it's a simple case of how these resources have been used as opposed to how much of it has been used.
Recently a guy on Twitter posed the question on if you could spend around £300 million better than Mourinho has spent his since he's joined, the only catch was that you had to name exactly 10 players, silly? Maybe, but bear with me a moment. Now whether it be Mourinho, Woodward or the boards fault on how it was squandered, fact is it is a substantial sum of money for anyone, and we've laid it down on very few players, leaving gaps in the squad (RW, 10, LB, RB, CM) and not replacing sub standard players with great ones.
Now here is a list of players i proposed that switched clubs either in 2016 or 2017 since Mourinho took over, meaning they were entirely gettable and we can see the transfer fees they went for.
Timo Werner - £9mill to Leipzig, would go for substantially more now.
Julian Draxler - went for £35mill to PSG, always had quality, now coveted at a higher price
James Rodriguez - £50/60mill loan with option to buy for Bayern, would of been a brilliant #10
Ruben Neves - £16mill to Wolves, a shock transfer because he's higher quality than this, and is smashing it there now.
Eric Bailly - £30mill, kept him because he's great
Paul Pogba - £89mill, high price yes but worth it if he flourises
[Irrelevant point] - £20mill to Chelsea, now considered one of the best LB's in the world
Davinson Sanchez - To Ajax for £4mill, then to Spurs in 2017 for a much higher price
Thomas Meunier - £5mill to PSG, and now we are linked with him at a higher price.
Leon Goretzka - Maybe Schalke could of been tempted with £20mill due to contract.
Now that's £288mill there spread over the 2016 and 2017 transfer windows and covers substantial gaps in our squad with quality, you can't tell me virtually all of them now wouldn't replace the deadwood in the squad with quality. You have LB, RB, 2 DC, 3 CM, 2 Winger/AM's, 1 ST.
Im not saying all of them were gettable, or that we didnt even try but looking at our scattershot approach, where we seemingly weren't allowed alternatives to players like Perisic you'd have to guess not.
So why is this, do we lack the scouts? The conviction? Is it Woodward? or Mourinho's lack of wiggle room. I just cant see what our approach is other than I think its wrong, obviously people will say well i dont know better than the manager or the club but surely everything i've listed above is just common sense. Worrying signs all around really behind the scenes.