Aston Villa successfully sold a midfield quartet of Barry, Young, Downing and Milner in three successive summer windows. Selling your best players in three years would suggest selling. That none of them have been replaced says something as well. Have Liverpool, Arsenal & Spurs done anything like that?
Spurs and Liverpool have replaced players they sold quite well ,Arsenal you could argue have not done much better than us.Nasri , Fabragas ,Henry ,Adebayor ..none of them really replaced that well