"Project" is just a buzzword that they like to use a lot in Italy (and also other countries). It has to be a project because none of the teams have the ability to just go and buy whichever player they want to improve their team as PSG, City, Chelsea, Man Utd and Real Madrid do (Barcelona used to be in this group, Bayern don't really need to be as they have a stranglehold on many of the best domestic players, so remain very competitive). Still, those teams talk about their own "projects", which are basically to win every trophy every season.
I don't think that people really appreciated how we were just about hanging on in there financially with Europe's elite, our turnover was 9th or 10th in Europe at the best time in these last 10 years. So we're trying to be part of the elite 3 or 4 teams with a smaller budget than Spurs and about the same as Arsenal, and managed to sign some elite and expensive players. It was quite some going, but maybe after Covid reality will finally set in for the majority. We can only trade so far on our name, as many other historic clubs have found out. It's right that we now look towards younger players, but then we should have been doing more of that before just the past 2 or 3 seasons. Personally I'd have traded the Ronaldo signing for a couple of great talents, but it's easy to say that now. At the time we thought it would be the final step to becoming a CL favourite for 3 or 4 seasons.