What you're missing is that a top class fullback is absolutely one of our priorities since Era is already 34 (soon to be 35) and that we definitely need a replacement for him.
Sandro is not only an replacement, but a player to lock down the LB/LWB spot for years to come, as one of the best in his position. As such, the investment in Sandro is absolutely worth it. Evra's position was well covered for the present, but with Sandro, it's well covered for the future too.
Lb was covered for the present, with Evra (Top Class), Asa (very good) and Padoin (Decent) doing what they did last season. Sandro as a world class player on top of them is a slight improvement for the present and buys us security in the future. Looking at the signing in isolation, it is definitely a good signing. However, AM did not and still does not have a single top class player, and amongst non-top talents we have just one player to play that position. Allegri publicly said he wanted a world class AM.
Getting a long term world class Lb when adequate cover was already there is < getting a world class AM where no adequate cover exists.
I dont see why its a controversial point. A top AM was a more pressing issue than a top Lb because of the lack of adequate cover in the AM position and how essential that position is in Allegri's 4-3-1-2. The same applies even more clearly for Zaza
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That's where you're wrong. The club tried to bring AM over the summer. See Marotta's interviews at the beginning of the season. There were talks with several clubs, but there wasn't any opening and players like Goetze and Draxler were either too expensive or didn't want to leave their club. Instead of bringing in 2nd rate attacking midfielder, like Vasquez, we strenghtened positions that could have become an issue for us soon. It was never like deciding to bring Sandro or Zaza prevented us to sign top attacking mid. The team already had several options in any case and there's also 3-5-2, the system well known to our players. Pereyra is very good AM btw and if we're looking for an upgrade it need to be some world class signing, which in any case would be difficult. I'm glad we pursued other objectives and added players like Sandro among our ranks, since Evra might not be here next year. Then you'd complain that we didn't plan ahead. We were never looking at only one position on the field and made it as our priority, evidently.
The point is we had several gaps to fill left by Tevez' leave, Evra's age and there's an AM spot. We did excellent in 2/3.
Dude you couldn't have been more wrong, since you predicted mid table finish at one point. Tottaly panicked. Our team is stacked with insane amount of talent and we are set to dominate for the next 5-6 years. Iirc you also predicted that Roma are in better position than us last year, since we'll have plenty of players to replace soon. Well look how that turned out.
If I remember correctly, we really didnt go after draxler for a long time and were outbid by wolfsburg. The Sandro and Zaza signings came earlier on in the transfer season and so I think you are mistaken in saying that we were going for Draxler and then decided to pursue Sandro and Zaza instead. The order we followed had draxler at the end of our market if memory serves me right. The money for Sandro and Zaza was already spent by the time we went after Draxler.
We also had to replace Pirlo. Marchisio took his role but no one took marchisio's old role (Vice Pirlo).
I did not predict a mid table finish. As far as I remember, I predicted a top 3 finish if marchisio comes back and stays injury free and a mid table finish if marchisio remains out. Even if I did make that prediction(which i don't remember making), the indicators back then were that we were a mess. we changed formations something like 8 times in 10 games and had our worst start to a season in the last few decades. The players were running around like headless chicken and so naturally this data forecasts a very dark future. You do not rationally expect a stock that has been in free-fall for a couple of months to suddenly take a great continuous hike. We were warranted in thinking that the season would go bad. It was not an unreasonable forecast to make given the available evidence at the time. You are a main of faith in this regard and you were vindicated but that doesnt mean we were unreasonable in our prediction. In epistemology we call predictions like yours cases of epistemic luck.
Finally, Roma were in a better position than us thats why their failure is doubly bad. They had a core of young very good players, had very good financial backing and had young good coach that was staying for many years. We on the other hand had a very old core and had to replace key players either because of age or because they were moving on like Vidal and Tevez. We also had to go through a coach change, a formation switch and then switch back with tons of new largely young inexperienced players coming in. The fact that Roma is as low as they are is scandalous. They had the money, the squad and the stability while we had none of that. On our side, this is a testament to Allegri's good work (and Marotta's to some extent), while on their side its a miserable failure on their management and particularly on Garcia.
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