So what are we saying mate, that we are looking at four years fighting and mostly successfully retaining a top four place and no silverware? If that's the reality who is up for that ride. I rewatch video of:crooks, Archibald and Perryman winning us trophies. I don't do the same of Pleat's 3rd place' side (who were better than keith's side by the way). It's actually annexistential question. Why do we watch?
Perhaps I am too close to some people associated with the club and accept their interpretation of what the 'Project' was is - Poch was recruited to lift the club into the top competitive tier of the PL. He was made comprehensively aware of the huge investment we'd made in our Academy/training centre and what had to our scouting set-up (which was happening, has happened and is continuing) along with the whole coaching set-up; as 'success' was partly defined as bringing through one player per season - or at least one that we could sell which would make the ROI on the academy significant - and we've done that.
Beyond that, it was completely and totally understood that Poch and the Club had a 7-10 year timeline to build the stadium to boost revenues to the point where it would allow a different approach to squad acquistion and retention to the one we have had in recent memory (build/produce young players that can be improved and have enhanced sales values that the club can cash-in on as needed).
Poch has so far met and exceeded these expectations from the board; next comes the new stadium, new increasing budgets and less of the 'pay me what I'm worth' type stuff we have to suffer and then player retention can be made on the coaches views, not financial impact ones.
The same will go for acquistion - buying players who may actually be at their peak, instead of players leading up to it and then being prepared to suffer losses on future sales , even after amoritisation.
It's why Poch signed a seven-year deal; as the lore is he put the board on the spot and said; if that's your 'Project' plan - put your contract where your mouth is, and the club did.
Now from next season we are on the second phase of the project; top tier competiveness has been established (although no one will be complacent) and next comes the focus on winning Silverware - squad depth and better quality additions from now on should go a long way to help making that happen. (The discontent is Poch's view of what's worth winning and the statement it makes as opposed to starving fans view of nearly decades of being also-rans).
Phase two timeline starts after the project finance facilities is fully replaced by long term finance. Available spending budgets will then become crystal clear and it will be a long way up from where they are now.
So I see financial impact on our squad dynamics hitting in around 2-3 seasons time.
I expect to be in finals/in the mix fro PL titles from then, and hopefully winning a few.
It's taken Liverpool over ten years to get to the same point, and they had a huge starting advantage over us.
So if anyone has expecations before then, whilst we might be suprised, I think the big impact on spend and squad will come 2020 and beyond - then we need to winning silverware on a regular basis.
