I guess the point is that without a large outside investment, you can’t get the onfield success without the off-field success, unless you hit a perfect storm of academy players and recruitment for a year or two. Like we did under the early days of Poch, or Leicester did under Ranieri (though they burnt brighter and faster than we did). It won’t secure you consistent success though. We flamed out in the end and Leicester didn’t convert their title into consistent top 4, though of course they did win the cup last year.
The frustration for fans which I share is that for years now it’s been ‘jam tomorrow’ in terms of trophies so now we want our jam. FWIW I think if Conte fails it’ll because of his own mistakes, which we’ve all highlighted since basically the turn of the year, and the club not being willing or able to match his ambitions. While Levy has obviously made mistakes over the years we’ve also been in plenty of positions where coaches/players have made mistakes that have cost us in big games.
I also think that the fans, myself included, are overreacting a bit to a blip where 2 of the 5 key players at the club are woefully out of form and 2 are injured. Given the lack of options, Conte is going to struggle to mitigate that, though I repeat that he hasn’t helped himself with team selection the last few games, which is frustrating. I believe a coach of his quality should be able to get more out of this squad and better identify issues in-game, though obviously it needs strengthening if we’re going to consistently challenge for top 4 and trophies in the future.
