you know, truth be told, many of the so-called mistakes, with the benefit of hindsight, can now be viewed in a very different light. Signings such as Marlon, Routledge and so on may be seen now as "temps", fellows who were brought in to do a job , with a long term view of development ongoing over a period of a few seasons. The thing iss, it would appear that MON had in mind a number of candidates for his planned team for quite some time, in fact it may be that his targets din't change much at all, it was simply a a matter of them becoming available, and the need for filler, decent players that could be counted on until the last pieces of the jigsaw were in place, explains the signings that were less than what most fans thought to be suitable.. Many fans thought at the end of last season that we had missed our best chance ever to move on, and now it would appear that we are in a better position now than we were then, with a more well rounded squad and defence in depth. I think the Barry saga was a dissapointment for MON, but he has proved himself to be resilient and flexible, as well as a brilliant man manager in (esp. in comparison to the man management of one of our nearest rivals currently, the luckless Mr Hughes...
cheers, Gary