That's an interesting distinction you're drawing. One I'm not sure I agree with. I would argue that with every "failure" comes mistakes. Now, it is certainly the case that the relative importance of "circumstances" (read "bad luck") and mistakes vary from situation to situation, and that our failure to sign a striker has a very healthy dose of bad luck.
However, I think it's always worth analysing things with an open mindset when you've failed. We're often told that in football, everything's small margins. The GB cycling team's mantra was "tiny incremental improvements". Gary Player famously said "the harder I practise, the luckier I get". All these demonstrate (to me), an acceptance, right at the core of everything they do, that there really always are things that you can do to improve.
I honestly don't sense that PB has this mentality.
Edit: I should have extended my final sentence: "...when it comes to things that he has had a direct, personal role in. He's been outstanding at getting others in the club to do better at their jobs, and improving processes, even though there's still a long way to go."
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