It's been the case ever since we first won the title, to be honest. Even discounting the fees for Bernardo Silva and Ederson, our recruitment has not delivered and the blame lies squarely with our board. Txiki Begiristain and Manuel Pellegrini put the squad back years, all the way to 2010, in my opinion. We had no backbone, we were too old, in need of serious improvement in too many neglected areas and short of home grown players.
Not only did we spend four years throwing millions on tripe like Bravo, Rodwell, Sinclair, Mangala, Fernando, Jovetic, Navas and Bony, but we kept players like Demichelis way past their sell-by date and gave them first team places. The amount of times the ball was shifted out right to Navas only for him to hit the first man, the amount of times Fernando was caught in possession, the amount of times Bony snapped at a chance and sliced it.
Pellegrini's style of football constantly left us vulnerable. Once we lost control of a game there was no way we were getting the momentum back. Due to terrible recruitment at the back we had to rush Kompany into the side after injuries on several occasions which is why things got so bad. It's no coincidence that his longest run of good fitness (which is currently at about 6 months) has come immediately after his longest break.
There are signs under Pep that we're getting there. Our signings are much younger, we're focusing on bringing in a couple of homegrown players to boost the numbers, but after that 2012 title we should have kicked on and become a super club. But instead of getting Hazard, Van Persie and De Rossi we got Sinclair, Rodwell and Balotelli for another six months. Five major trophies since 2011 is more than I ever dreamed of but it's not as good as it could have been.
