Does three league places and the 7-8m that goes with it matter if we can bring through a winger that is good enough who will require no transfer fee?
Think of it this way: last summer we sold Lookman and bought Iwobi at a net cost of about 15m. Without making this into a referendum on whether either player is any good, imagine if we played Lookman last spring when we were vainly chasing 7th and as a result we finished two spots lower but also convinced Lookman he had a future here. We wouldn't have had to make the transfer loss as we still had a young, up and coming winger in the squad. It would have taken under 6 months for that kind of thing to pay off.
We are also the last club that should be thinking short term all the time.