I guess the irony is we've had a few years of no CL football, yet we're on the cusp once again, despite arguably not having the resources to compete, which I suppose compounds the point that you have to seize the here and now to win trophies and not preoccupy yourself too much with planning for a few years down the line, otherwise you end up like Arsenal, with an abundance of exciting talent continuously coming in, hampered by being an open door for your stars to walk out at any given time, completely undoing all of the aforementioned, "careful planning for the future".
I think Arsenal's plan would have worked admirably had they just splashed out occasionally on the 2 or 3 players they've desperately needed at certain times. I think that's had more to do with Wenger than anything else.
But as a model of how to maintain good performance on a tiny budget they've actually been pretty good.
Obviously you need a balanced approach. I just wonder if in Suraez's case it might be better to sell. He's worth, what, £70m right now? And will be worth more like £25m in 3 years (he'd be coming up 31 by then). So maybe £15m a year in capital, and £10m a year in wages.
It's a lot, is all I'm saying.