I think not giving AA credit for the Sale trade is insane. It was a wildly successful trade, no matter how easy or obvious it looks. He deserves credit for finding it and making it.
A valid criticism, however, would be that AA seems risk averse to the point that unless it’s an extremely obvious win, he won’t do it. The Murphy trade is a glaring hiccup in that thought, but otherwise any FA signings or deals he makes he seems to always come out clearly on top, and hunting for those deals is fine, but it seems to sometimes prevent him from making moves that would improve the club. Maybe the Murphy trade made him even more gun shy.