1. We paid transfer fees for Rose, Sowerby and Ashley-Seal at a time when a good number of League One and League Two clubs spent zilch due to pandemic belt-tightening. I would suspect that Mills is on a decent wage given that he was Forest Green's captain and top scorer.
That sounds like a pretty competitive budget to me. I'd be surprised if the likes of Accrington, Gillingham, Crewe and AFC Wimbledon or Wycombe (last year's play-off winners) had spent more.
2. TeachersPet is right: recruitment isn't an exact science and even geniuses like Sir Alex have the odd Djemba-Djemba moment.
However, a hall-mark of a decent manager is that the diamonds outweigh the duds. Curle has signed five strikers this season: Rose, Ashley-Seal, Edmondson, Miller, Nuttall. Only one of them (Rose) has scored a legitimate goal! A look at their respective track records suggests that this shouldn't have come as a glaring surprise.
If he had saved his money, offered Oliver a two-year contract with a pay rise and signed a proper winger/creative midfielder instead of messers Seal, Edmondson and Nuttall then we might be having a very different conversation right now.
(For the record, I don't believe Vadaine would have scored 16 goals for us, but I do believe he would have scored 8-10 and assisted more with his hold-up play.)
Paying a fee for BAS is taking the p1ss.