I too have a bit of experience in these matter Gray (!), so here is my take on it.
Once you get the fixed costs and wages paid, then everything else is a judgement on risk. Any penny that you spend, is a penny that you could have kept in the kitty to pay a bill another time, especially if you are loss making already.
The whole thing hinges on the Coutts injury for me. Flying before it, our form suddenly evaporated and the prediction of all football, that we'd start well and fade away, is looming large. I understand that Wilder's January budget was agreed in the Autumn when we were doing well and frankly £3-4m on the right two players would have had us in play-offs. But here we are in December, 1 win in 9, needing to replace Coutts, AND get the extra quality out of the same budget.
So, we've lost our key player (and Freeman, and Brooks), our form is terrible, Wolves are already away in the top spot, so we are playing for one automatic slot, which it looks like Cardiff, Fulham or Villa will be in, and then there's the play-offs, which we're likely to be coming into at the end of a long season, without a lot of form, against deeper and better squads. Is it impossible? Of course not. But where does it lie on the risk scale? We have a straight choice between increasing the budget in the hope that we can find the players to regain our form, or accept that this is probably not our time and to stop chasing something that, on the balance of probability, isn't going to happen.
Now, if I own the club, do I want to stick another £3m in if my opinion is that it is not likely that it will result in our promotion? Its not a 'no-brainer' that we should, because we're close and the prize is huge. If Coutts is still on two legs, Freeman and Brooks are fit and playing well, and we're still picking up 2 points a game then its a different decision entirely, but it isn't. That's where we were. So should we hold back for the summer and mount a better campaign next year? (Although I have no evidence I wonder if this is the source of the 'Kev wanted to stick cash in, HRH didn't' rumour..?).
The biggest lesson I have from business is 'you can only spend money once', and you have to be really, really honest with yourself about risks. I understand the argument about ambition. I can see the prize. Everyone can see the prize, that's why there are ten teams in the league who have spent £30m plus, and seven of them are going home with nowt for all the cash they spent. But as I think I said recently, I'm much more risk-averse when its my money.
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