I don't think that's true - for example the club recouped almost all of the money for Schneiderlin and Depay. I remember the club wrote off £6m when they let Schweinsteiger go in January 17. These three were only at the club for 18 months.
Morgan 35m --> 23m
Depay 34m --> 16m
Darmian 18m --> 2.5m
Schweini 9m --> Free, released (not sure where that 6m came from, is it his value in the accounting book?)
*Transfer market*
Martial and Romero are good buys.
I mean you can say summer 18 was a missed opportunity but by that notion I would say that's the same for summer 19 too.
We didn't solve our porblems in summer 18 with a lack of signings and we failed to solve our long term problems with awfully expensive signings we did make in summer 19 (the same positions are now on an even longer list of positions we now need to improve). We've gambled our medium to long term future away on them if they don't deliver.
I think S19 is different, because both Mag and AWB became starting 11 immediately, replacing the random CB and Valencia essentially. This is just a small progress towards our ongoing defense problem. The problem lies on selling, less on buying although that is also a problem. We dismantled the squad, stripping it thin with less forwards and less quality of impact midfield, and paid the cost of it which we only improve in Jan and the next summer 20. Many problem still remains. S19 is a bit missed opportunity because Ole decided to gamble on youth and Lingard which didn't pay off.
True if we
consider the whole thing including the whole squad management including outs, then I would rank the
S19 at 2nd.
If we only
consider specifics just the buying part, plannings, results and first team playing squad, both Mag and AWB are here for the long term, no doubt they improved the team even if after that, our current level is still trash. S15 had Martial and Romero for the longer terms, and Darmian who helped us won two trophies short term. The other three players (and Matteo afterwards) are just a waste of space and money, hence why I put
S15 at 2nd. We also had to ask LVG's planning here being terrible... why get Schweini if we already had similarly Carrick. Getting a physical CDM is right but I never rate Schneiderling, why freaking him? Depay is arguably a good idea.. a young promising winger but then why also get Martial at the same window who played in the same position? It screams poor planning.
I still think
S18 is the worst - just plain trash, screams incompetency by the club. Clearly the club has no directions nor good plannings. That window S18 clearly say the club is fully satisfied reaching 2nd place the season before.
"Improving the squad even more? no need. We're the 2nd best team already. Good enough for top 4 every seasons.
Oh also here's a new midfielder to join our already big midfield department offering nothing new, and an old 3rd choice GK because why not?
RW? CB? LB? RB? who needs those."