Again, what was the alternative?
Most of our money back then went on new contracts, decent contracts, for our better players. (and rightfully so).
We could not spend what we did not have.
And that is fine. Tbh I'm not one that really lays into Bill as there were circumstances in play, but to say we were better run back then is a fallacy. We led a hand to mouth existence and had we had the number of people online then as we do now this place would have combusted.
We got away with it due to a number of factors, including finding
Moyes who was the right manager at that time, having an asset like Rooney to stop the foreclosure right at the start, that bit of cash helping us rebuild, increased TV money as Bill wasn't putting in any cash and most importantly of all back then there were only 4 decent teams so if you had a good season you were in with a chance of Europe. Now 6 teams are up there and there are a group of 4 j7st below that are fairly well financed and fighting over the final slot. That means increased competition not only for league places but for players too. What people really mean when they say I wish we could go back to
Moyes and Kenwright era is they wish we could get the same sort of results and final league position - not how we were run or to a certain extent managed as we should have done better with that team than we actually did.