Well... NO! We did reach the CL Final in 2017, or did you forget about that?
Where it did go wrong was spending that 90 million on Higuain (which was excessive) and then offering old geezers contract extensions. The cycle was somewhat coming to a close in 2018, and management should have spotted that, instead of offering renewals for older players rewarding their loyalty, over actually building a squad for the future. Khedira and Pjanic, along with Higuain were very useful and servicable players for 2+ seasons. We just fucked up by never properly replacing Vidal and, to a lesser extent, Pogba.