We either strengthen, or we get left behind, whether that's in a push for top four or a title challenge.
I'm not overly concerned if we wait a few more weeks before doing business given the kinds of players we should be looking at won't be ready to join pre-season straight away anyway.
Replacing a third choice keeper (who didn't play a single minute last year) with a promising youngster is fine.
Saving a bit of cash we might have spent on squaddies to secure new deals for Trent, Virgil and maybe Mo is fine.
But we had to call on a load of kids to win the only trophy we secured last year. That's not fine. Great experience for them and they did superbly well, but it speaks of a squad that was already stretched, and we've since lost 2 players in Matip and Thiago who would at least have been in the match day squad if fit.
But to go from bidding north of £100m for Caicedo to saying we were never going to do much business this summer is bullshit. I hope it's just about managing selling clubs' expectations of our spending power so we keep the prices down.
I'm not overly concerned if we wait a few more weeks before doing business given the kinds of players we should be looking at won't be ready to join pre-season straight away anyway.
Replacing a third choice keeper (who didn't play a single minute last year) with a promising youngster is fine.
Saving a bit of cash we might have spent on squaddies to secure new deals for Trent, Virgil and maybe Mo is fine.
But we had to call on a load of kids to win the only trophy we secured last year. That's not fine. Great experience for them and they did superbly well, but it speaks of a squad that was already stretched, and we've since lost 2 players in Matip and Thiago who would at least have been in the match day squad if fit.
But to go from bidding north of £100m for Caicedo to saying we were never going to do much business this summer is bullshit. I hope it's just about managing selling clubs' expectations of our spending power so we keep the prices down.