I'm of the same mindset. We've got to plan for the long term but these are uncertain times so i don't really see Joe Lewis investing very much at all. Begs the question then, why sign Mourinho?
Because it was plan 'b'; Losing Poch the way we did wasn't supposed to happen, he was to be our Wenger and the financial projections showed that once our new stadium was built, we could start competing for top players and start keeping players with top wages, in ways we never could before; there was to be a free cash flow every year in the region of (in the short term, much bigger as time goes by) £100 - £150 mill, of which there was nothing else to spend it on apart from set quarterly / half-yearly finance repayments, players and dividends, and perhaps some expansion into e-sports and maybe some other area's.
The troika was a true bromance, Lewis, Levy and Poch were going to luxuriate in big spending and start winning silverware, nirvana was at hand.
But as we all know post the CL final, meltdown ensued - Poch had warned the club, players were playing with a litany of small injury issues the likes of we'd never seen in recent times; - they'd been overplayed many were diagnosed with long term exhaustion, the true cost of (near) success was crystal clear to anyone close to the club and the players, they were to all intents and purposes, broken, some worse than others, some still holding on, but all of any worth were looking at the exits.
They knew it couldn't go on like this - so Poch was promised a small fortune in spending, which he got, even if we didn't spend all we'd promised him and didn't get a couple of first-choice players he wanted i.e. PH (who we'd been tapping up all summer, but got a complete block from by Southampton, so had to wait), a top-class striker was a target too, and that also fell away to nothing in the end.
Poch was once again feeling somewhat short of what was promised, it got worse when Levy did an article in the Telegraph and boasted 'we could have spent more'. That was rubbing salt into the wound, various things were going on inside the club around then and that's when I believe Poch decided enough was enough but would wait for the chop.
So when Poch pushed back and said to anyone who'd listen, the rebuilding was going to be painful and perhaps take 4 windows, the players, the club all didn't want to hear it. Of course, the board said 'of course we understand' but when new signings didn't suddenly hit the ground running and with us not beating anyone in sight, Poch's goose was cooked.
So Levy being Levy decided that Poch was too comfortable now and almost unmanageable and that attitude from the board started to show - the only 'big name' that Levy thought could manage big new players that we could get was literally Jose, whose agent had been in talks with the club for nigh on 3 months when Levy was sure a deal could be done he moved and acted. Poch knew it was coming.
Jose was a default, but he ticked all the boxes. A winning history, a big name signing and the ability to put together teams where big money was going to be available and might be enough to convince our best players to stay, which back then looked nigh on impossible.
Then as we now know, the rest is history.