My argument is that the long term future is better served by investing more in the playing squad now and staying in the Championship. Getting out of league 1 is very hard.
I’m really surprised we didn’t have quality replacements lined up for Azaz and Cundle leaving. Was this a budget constraint as I’m sure our data analytics department would have had targets identified for such a scenario.
You have mixed up long term with short term.
Invest in the playing squad is for the short term (ie for as long as they are with us), as if we had the money in the first place. We didn't.
And in any case there would be no certainty of staying in the Championship, ask any of the teams around us who have already spent millions more on their squad and they are in a similar position to us!
Quality replacements would have cost us similar to the ones that left, except that during January the advantage is with the selling club, so the purchasing fees would have been inflated. Disappointing, I know, but a no brainer if there is no-one within our price range. We did get in some youngsters though, although they didn't quite fit into the jigsaw that we had.
In any case, we didn't replace them, we couldn't replace them, and so that was that.
P.S. There is no certainty that we will be relegated this season, just as much as there is no certainty of us keeping our place in this league, with or without replacements, that we could not afford anyway.