That was before other teams starting investing even more crazy amounts of money and also before Blackburn became even shitter.
07/08 they finished 7th...couple of points away from a European place...5th and 6th taken by Villa and Everton, neither of whom has spent any money. In fact outside of Man City and to a lesser extent Spurs, hardly any Prem club has spent much.
My point is that although not easy....it's not that ludicrous a statement to make...certainly no more so than expecting STFC to be in the Championship within 3 years.
