I hadn't actually and that is a fair criticism but it is not unreasonable to ask where you heard that from.
Well, my two bits of data so far are Collomosse's article in the Evening Standard that mentions Batshuayi as the main reason Mitchell's leaving and Poch's press conference, where he admitted that he was unhappy with him going. It's not unreasonable to ask about that at all, no, and I apologize if I came off snappish, but you could have articulated that much better than putting up a (beautiful, high-res) irrelevant picture and a snarky comment, as you now seem intent on doing every time you respond to something I say.
How do you even know that this is a rut? We had two obvious holes in the squad and we have filled them with decent players. It would be good to add some further quality but not essential.
I try not to dig you out too often but considering that your posts are unrelenting negative, I do not think that questioning you on it every now and again is too much.
The rut isn't about squad quality or its holes, the rut relates to what you think should be done when we have a player that is being recommended by scouts and requested by the manager turns out to be too expensive for Levy's tastes. You generally think Levy's justified in going with his gut instinct and choosing the cheaper option, and I disagree. The squad had two obvious holes, and those were filled, but we've possibly lost our chief scout because they were filled (in part) by players he didn't prefer to the ones he recommended. The price difference between Janssen and Batshuayi, in that regard, seems like the key reason one was preferred over the other, since Mitchell apparently hung his hat on Batshuayi and the 'black box' is generally held to be successful.
This fundamental rut is what I'm referring to, and what we fill into, without fail, every time. I recognize it, and freely admit it, because to my mind I haven't yet seen evidence that we don't systematically go for the cheaper option in ways that are occasionally extremely detrimental to our chances of success. I had hoped to see the activity of the summer of 2015 pushed forward, but it seems like we ended up reverting to form. In that regard, we clash every time. You'd be better off recognizing it as well, you know.
One man's horror, another man's sanity.
True, but that doesn't mean I have much sympathy for Mitchell if (and that's still somewhat of an if) this is his reason for leaving. I can understand why he'd get frustrated with the way we do things, but the warning signs were there for all to see, and he himself cannot have failed to see that this is how we do things. Thus, resigning over it now because, surprise surprise, we acted how we'd been acting for five or six-odd years prior to his arrival isn't particularly worthy of a great deal of empathy. AVB, I sympathize with - he signed after Harry, he was told he'd be given money to reform the squad in his own way, he was told he'd get the players he wanted, he apparently never did, resigned, and spoke out against it. But after AVB's experience was up in the papers for anyone to read, to have someone else fall for the same schtick is just...difficult to empathize with, is all.
![Stick Out Tongue :p :p](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)