I’d say it was better and looked to have a direction then we self sabotaged ourselves by not backing a manager who appeared to know what he was doing which in turn led to him losing faith
Yeah, the windows not buying players was deeply frustrating, and I'm sure the players and manager felt it.
But - I still don't believe that was the reason why we failed at the last hurdle - if the players didn't care or didn't have the drive to win, we wouldn't have got to the final in the first place.
Similarly, when we were buying young stars like Bale, Modric, Walker and bringing in VDV surely that should have driven the players to success? If one argument has to be true, then then other does too surely?
Or perhaps the truth is much, much more nuanced.