If you meant that there are different options instead of one, I agree, but, you would also understand that the chances of success of a different option is lower. If you look at the EPL recently, you will notice that most of the time it has been clubs spending more than what we are spending now that have won the league. The only club that has been in the top 4 while spending less than us is Arsenal. Man U's net spending might even be lower than us, but, instead of money they had a huge asset that they have sold, ie, Ronaldo, this doesn't happen very often.
You can't say they're lower, if you've not been able to come up with one that might work. I mean, precedent is a great tool. Taking an existing philosophy that works and moulding your company to work in the same way is a great starting point.
I know you hate comparisons but they are always necessary. There is no such thing as completely original thought... There is always a basis of reason behind it. I think getting to the bottom of that determines how strong the point is... so the comparison is to United. Under Ferguson, they built a sizeable squad of players. Almost immediately a 22 man squad for the first-team, and progressively, he improved options member by member. He had a very definite style he wanted to implement. He improved options bit by bit, bringing in talented yet hard-working and determined players that fought for the club. For all the hatred, they did it incredibly well.
Now if you take what Liverpool are doing now, there are fair similarities between the two. Rather than settling for average, they are aiming high for signings. Rather than buying randomly, they are attempted to upgrade member by member for improvements. They are happy to give Rodgers the freedom to choose options available to sign, and the club, while striving to not over-pay, have been bringing in improvements for areas we haven't been strong in.
Now when you say it is only clubs that have spent a lot, this is where your lack of detail on the matter makes me question the point. If you spend the most, you don't win the league. Under an umbrella, yes... clubs that spend more generally improve more, but the guarantee of success in football statistically, is not purely down to monetary investment. Spending a lot with an owner willing to is all well and good. I am sure fans of those clubs are excited by them, but the only clubs with staying power have been United and Arsenal. Both taking long-term strategies to continue investing and maintaining a squad. Lots of factors contribute to their successes and failings, but retaining a togetherness in the group is key. As soon as Arsenal were losing players, there problems began! Unsettled City players struggled last season. Chelsea have struggled for a couple of years in a similar vein.
It can be possible to work much better than others on the transfer market, but, there is not much that shows to me that we will consistently be better than others at it. Our scouting has not been great compared to others, by improving we will get to the same level as the best, may be a bit better, but, can't see how this will become our competitive advantage. The other problem is that when quality players are revealed by us, they become the targets of teams higher than us like Suarez, I only hope that he will play to his maximum capacity instead of sulking now.
For Barca I made the point that despite having a very good youth and scouting system, they are still paying top fees to buy players, they think they need both, thus they bought Neymar, who is in their starting eleven. We are quite far from their scouting and youth system from what I have seen.
I agree that business is about choosing the risk you want to take and as business people I am sure that FSG has made the right choice for themselves as business people. Where we don't agree is that I think that FSG's main objective is to make LFC profitable and the trophies will be a bonus. City owners for example are different, I think that they see winning trophies as the main target (their main purpose) and the profits will follow in the long run once they have build a brand by winning a lot of trophies.
I think I have understood what you are saying. You feel that there is another way of winning the league by investing less; in a business you would say grow organically and being better than everybody else. My feeling is, though anything is possible, I do not believe it would work if the footballing landscape doesn't change. I have seen Arsenal taking that same route with a top manager, playing great football, recruiting young players, but also selling their top players (we have refused to do it with Suarez unless we had more money but for how long can we keep him) but I see some very unhappy gunners fans. We have won more trophies than them recently.
Chelsea, City and United in the mean time are growing their franchise with Chelsea already selling more shirts than us and also in a position of signing better sponsorship deals than us. Since FSG took over and their policies, the gap has only grown bigger, don't think you can deny that. In can change next season, but right now it is what it is.
I'm not going to try and pick it apart. I do hate that you use phrases along the lines of comments like... you can't argue with this... this is irrefutable... similar at best... not a chance to be better...
Look, we all don't really know what the future holds. People can deliberate until the end of their lives what could happen. It is not about being better than everyone else that makes alternate strategies work. Sometimes it is less clear cut than "this works" and "everything else works worse". I think the failings in peoples arguments, and by this one included, is generalisation to the point where points are made out of context.
You make reference to a lot of opinions, which is fair, but if I can't understand the reason behind it, it is difficult to accept. Our scouting being worse. First of all, when budgets are different, so are choices in targets. How hard to City have to look to find a good player? They don't. If they did, they wouldn't have a director of football running Pelligrini's show, and they wouldn't have sold off the scouts that had served them very well before. Even Chelsea go for fairly obvious targets. Hazard, Lukaku, Schurrle and such are so well known. It doesn't make them better scouts. It means they chose highly fought after players, because they could afford to, and be able to attract them.
There are a lot of points within points you are generalising, which I then make reference to, that you just disagree with. Fine... but without a reason behind it... (you know, the whole reason these forums, debates and discussions are set up) then this is never going to transcend my opinion against yours. You do make some very valid points, but I do almost feel I have to do the leg-work to figure out which ones are steeped with proof, and which ones have evidence to back them up.
