I didn't know if I should put this in this thread or the transfers thread, but I thought as it encompasses more than just transfer policy it should go in here.
Here in Australia, despite being quite an insanely dedicated nation of sports consumers we only have to my knowledge one sports radio station and as such it differs a bit from what you get in Greece and the US, it regularly gets quite serious about issues like team building, general men's health and the science and psychology behind sport.
Late last year there was an extensive interview with a former Wallaby [Australian rugby representative] who had undertaken a 2 year research study into team building. By team building I don't mean bonding between team mates and whether or not they are going to punch on in the changing rooms after a game but the composition of your playing staff and list management. Specifically what they found was that the best results were derived by those teams who made minimal changes to their playing staff at any one time.
One of the examples they cited was the NFL where team lists are blown up and turned over at a huge rate and that not surprisingly the number of playoff teams can change from one season to the next by up to 50%, yet the teams who keep as much of their core intact from season to season [New England, Seattle, Denver] remain perennial playoff teams while others who go about hoovering up boatloads of free agents and look great on paper wallow on the periphery.
The other examples they used were Manchester United under Sir Alex and the current Barcelona setup which would only buy one or two players per season but ones that were a direct and obvious upgrade on what they had or replacing a retiree.
That's why I personally think blowing up the team and filling it with a bunch of mercenaries will lead to disaster. Obviously we aren't going to get a series of superstars in during one transfer window, but what we can do is buy 3 decent players this summer who are demonstrably better than what we have to be supplemented by the guys already there. I'm thinking a left back, a defensive midfielder and a left winger as first priority. Eventually inside 3 transfer windows you would have overhauled almost your entire starting XI with the aim being that our current first XI becomes our second XI unless they lift their game to outperform the new blood.
This however would only work if we could hire a manager/coach that we stick with. It's no surprise that our most consistent era was under Santos because he was given time and the players new that he wans't going anywhere in a hurry.
Apologies for the long post.