I may be wrong, but I imagine it's actually connected with the theme of this thread, that Pep is planning on building a team, so rather than going for a short term fix which might not work, ala Bony etc, he's willing to wait & try to get the players he wants for the future.
I don't think it needs to be one or the other though. I expect this summers targets are already known, and if they can be brought in now, whether it's to have an immediate impact or even just so they hit the ground running in August, I think they'd go for them in January.
Like you said what they won't do is go for someone they don't want long term purely to patch things right now.
There's definitely a long term team being built though, that's definite.
We've already got Stones, Sterling, Sané, Iheanacho & Jesus all 22 or under. Maffeo, Tosin and Aleix all have good chances of being properly involved next season, maybe even Gunn as a cup keeper. There's Unal, Moreno, Roberts, Zinchenko on loan - Celina is doing very well too - so any of those might be brought in over the summer, and I expect our summer targets will be roughly u23.
Genuinely wouldn't surprise me if over 50% of the squad was 23 or under next season. Having said that - I'd expect us to be doing that even if Pep was only here 3 years. The way to maximise his effect on the club long term is for him to leave behind a core group who have been shaped by him to carry on what he taught them when he leaves, whether that's in 3 years or 10.
