You're comparing apples and oranges. No, In fact you're comparing apples and the defunct Scottish letter yogh.
Gary Cook had an open chequebook, we were under no FFP restrictions and we needed to bring in top quality players, en masse, in order to lift the club from a position where we were a struggling Premier League side to one which could compete for titles. He could offer clubs whatever they wanted, and players/agents had the same lack of restrictions on their wages/bonuses/fees etc.
The current management team are working under a very different set of financial restrictions, and are coming at this transfer window from a far stronger bargaining position. We can't afford (more accurately we're not allowed to afford) to pay players £200k+ a week on a regular basis, and we can't throw whatever transfer fee is asked of us at clubs to get the deals done. We've got to negotiate more thoroughly, and that takes time. Equally City are a club which has won 2 of the last 4 Premier League titles, as well as a couple of cups, and are regulars in the Champion's League, so we don't need to throw money at signings in order to attract them, this means there's no compunction for us to do so. We can allow players own desires to play a part, letting them try and push deals through from their end, which too takes time.
We had a few needs for this summer, we needed to address our homegrown quota, we needed to add pace, width and a "different threat" upfront, we needed to bring in younger players as our squad is aging, and we needed to allow room for growth from our EDS graduates. Sterling and Delph meet those criteria. Roberts, Lopes, Denayer and Iheanacho meet those requirements. De Bruyne, should he sign (looking more likely than not) meets those requirements. Pogba, should he sign (looking unlikely but that was always going to be a long shot) would meet those requirements.
Yes, we'd all like something more. I'd like us to have addressed the fullback positions and tried to offload Sagna and Kolarov, however there's only so much money available to spend.
Viewing our transfer dealings as inept is seriously misinformed and demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding how City have changed over the last few seasons, and a failure to accurately assess what business we've done, and what our plans are.
