We haven't operated this way for close to ten years and why would we start now when we have seen the risk that comes with this strategy? Every year we have slackened off we have paid heavily.
If the Glazers wanted a guaranteed spot in the top four on the cheap they have the guy for it right now in the dugout, a simple Google search would have told them that they got their guy. Everyone in football knows that Ralf is an expert in building teams cheaply and the targets he had reported identified for us reflect his ethos but the club have ignored them because they don't want to compromise the permanent manager's budget for the summer.
I think they want to win but they don't want to go the extra mile and they don't know the right people in the industry that can organize a club for them. So they relied overly on Woodward and he has surrounded himself with cronies like Judge who he knew would never challenge him plus I think we ignore too much the nationalistic tilt within our club, we had DoFs around Europe throwing themselves at our feet but we chose an inside guy, why? Luis Campo, Ralf Rangnick amongst others are way more proven than Murtough and Fletcher and would have come, built a team more efficiently than Ole and Murtough's ridiculously expensive cultural reboot but we ignored them.
If Arnold can not extricate himself from the hold of the old boy network he will fail too. Even bringing Ten Hag won't change a thing as long as we still have untouchables within the club, I think our British contingent within the dressing room and club are over protected by Woodward and there is a number of them in the playing squad that you just know that they won't cut it under Ten Hag but would he get the backing to bring in possession oriented players if he demands them? Especially at the expense of some of our flops on big contracts?
Ten Hag is a systems manager and I like what he has done but if we aren't going to back him if he tells us to replace Bissaka, Shaw or McFred then we shouldn't bother wasting his time or ours. Just bring in Poch who would be more pragmatic and knows the league well enough to negotiate a top four finish. If we consistently finish in the top four and keep building we will definitely challenge one day.