I never bought into all the CL stuff that Cortese was saying as I just couldn't see how we could do it without significant investment, mainly in wages. In reality this was always going to be the biggest test, when we didn't have CL football but had some players who were good enough for the big clubs to want, whether or not we could keep a hold of them and continue to move forwards. If we could then European and possibly CL football may have been achievable.
All the other things that NC achieved in his time here were good, but not unheard of. Back to back promotions and then staying up in the Premiership first season? Norwich did that a year (?) before us with far less investment. Getting a club like Saints into the CL is virtually impossible and would require either a level of unrivalled loyalty from the players, a very very lucky season or a youth intake and transfer window of freakish levels.