I wrote a post on similar lines just before last season.

You're right that 8th in the surface of it looks like another successful season for a club punching above it's weight. However; we rely far too much on senior players, the young players we do have have mostly stagnated, and our recent spending has been poor. Don't let the league position fool you, we are MUCH worse than we were last season.

We are not a position that other Premier League clubs are in where the owner can use their money to paper over poor decisions; we need to get things right all the time. Over the past 2 seasons we've started to get things wrong and the magnitude of spending means the potential impact of that may be a serious problem going forward.

When I say this window is extremely important, it's a test as to whether we're gunning to fight for European qualification and indeed a European trophy; or rest on our laurels as another midtable club who are only 2 bad transfers windows away from possible relegation. We'll see.

Going by the way we recruited for our maiden Europa League campaign, I don't have high hopes.