Rejecting a Tielemans deal is not the same thing as going an entire summer without signing a player.
It's tautologically obvious that that is a disaster that cannot be allowed to happen under any circumstances and has not ever happened one single other time in the history of the Premier League.
And while that was the big one, the failure to end all failures, it was just the most glaring symptom of an operation that had completely failed and was no longer capable of doing business at a professional level.
The pain-in-the-ass manager who the club hierarchy didn't trust with their money exercising a veto power he shouldn't have had in confusing and arbitrary ways is not an alternative to that problem, it is a constituent part of that problem.