I think his point was we could have won stuff with a couple of star players, not just be improved. He is pointing out how close we were.
I feel a bit vindicated in that Hugo says almost word for word what many of us on here said throughout that period: The timing of it all just sucked. When we moved to Wembley, we were at least 2-3 years ahead of schedule.
That was partly down to how good we were, but it was also in a large part due to how unexpectedly weak the other big teams were at that time. A slight shift in PL chemistry was enough to march City and Pool right back to the top and that happened at precisely the time we couldn't keep up with them financially.
The other part that was typically Spursy was the unanticipated injuries to Rose, Wanyama and Dembele that effectively ended their careers at an elite level and years earlier than anyone would have predicted. This stripped us of 3 crucial players who were among the best in the division and here's that problem again: It happened at a time that we couldn't afford to replace them.
By the time we'd restored financial health, City and Pool were specks on the horizon and our team had declined to such an alarmingly low level that tbh no amount of money could've fixed it.
Which is why my main critique of Levy during this period has been the constant chopping and changing, making things up as he went along and hoping on a wing and a prayer that with managers antithetical to the club's philosophy, we'd somehow shortcut our way to success and bypass the painful reality that the whole edifice was crumbling.
It took 8th place, three managers, open fan rebellion and Kane leaving to knock some sense into him, but we finally have what looks like a long term plan.