Is Last Seasons Success More a Curse Than a Blessing?

This is going to be controversial, and I shall make it clear from the start I am not wishing a lack of success on the club iIhave supported for 20+ years but I can't help thinking that last seasons success of the side has in fact been somewhat of a curse. Rising expectations to a very high level from a group of players that managed to perform collectively above the abilities.
The problem is we all expect so much now. Speaking to most of my fellow fans at the start of last season we would all have gladly finished mid table. The pleasant surprise that was the promotion push was extremely welcome. And we do have players who are more than capable of pushing for the Premier League. This is the thing with the Championship. Just about anyone if they get on such a rich vein of form like we had is up there and challenging.
What is especially frustrating and I share with many of the fans who frustrate me, is that I really wonder why a permanent left back hasn't been bought in. That position has really been a case of papering over the cracks. However, I am not as foolish as many it seems to think there's a raft of Premier League level players willing to come here without a decent pay packet.
As a club with Premiership ambitions we have to be looking at premier League standard players. However the ones in the Premier League will be earning considerable more than we can pay. Many fans have been pointing out that if we want to make money from the Premier league, we have to pay to get there. Speculate to Accumulate. BUT, and that's a big BUT, that is potentially mortgaging the clubs future. The drones who phone match-line ( and really, what kind of persons first reaction to a match is to phone an answer-phone with their views?) and harp on about we need to spend must forget clubs like Leeds and Portsmouth. 2 years of fun followed by a decade of misery.These "experts" will always suggest that as a business man Doughty must know you have to risks, but at the same time do these people not realise that to create a stable basis for going up it needs to be done carefully and not spending money like the wild west days of yore when the likes of Middlesbrough would spend like money was going out of fashion, and extremely quickly.
And so last season hangs over us, with a lack of following up that form. Davies constantly says its because we need to invest, but perhaps his targets aren't realistic. Some clubs simply won't want to sell, some players won't want to step down, and those Championship players might be having half an aye of the Premiership (like our old target Ben Watson successfully achieved) But now the fans drunk on success want more, I can't blame them, I do to, but I know its not a right. There are other clubs with similar ambition, and yes we do need to keep ahead of them rather than keep up with them. But last seasons investment was pretty much unseen at that level for many years on Trentside. You can't expect that level of investment EVERY year from the club. Especially when you had a manager who openly courting the Celtic job.
It is a divisive issue. Spend spend spend, or be careful and not go in the red. There doesn't appear to be a happy median of the two.

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