I don't think they are really, certainly not in this context. I think we all used to laugh at Liverpool fans talking about net spend because it was a way of them just ignoring the fact that they were spending inordinate amounts of money on players and somehow making out like they were fighting the system. Because of that people just seem to laugh at the mention of net spend now, but in the right context it's a pretty useful thing to look at. It's no use for in depth financial analysis obviously, but as a high level snapshot of circumstances it works quite well.
In this particular instance the fact that we haven't been able to invest in the squad over a prolonged period when it was already of bottom half standard to begin with is - quite obviously I would have thought - relevant to the discussion. This isn't us selling a player for £150m and then claiming every player we buy for the next few years is offset by that one deal, this is us consistently losing both key players and useful squad members and either not replacing them at all or having to look for budget options to do it, while also paying out significantly less in wages.
Once again I feel like I'm going to have to point out in advance that this isn't specific to Dyche, it's a comment on where the club is at the moment, regardless of who the manager is. The idea that we should have been progressing is just plain wrong in my opinion, and anyone who was expecting that was just setting themselves up for a fall. The last couple of years have been about staying in the league until the ownership and stadium was sorted, that's it. Talk of trying to improve on 12th and implementing a new style is just fantasy stuff, the only target the club has had is staying afloat until yesterday and by hook or by crook we've managed to do it. Hopefully we can put all that behind us now and start enjoying things again, with or without this manager.
