There's a difference in planning for your team going down, or keeping that scenario (quite realistic for every promoted team) in mind while buying players.
For example, we could have splashed the money on 28-33 year old players with Premier League experience, but if we would go down there would be absolutely no chance that they would stay. So that basically means that after relegation, you have to renew your whole squad and that means promoting right back is no option (which is the real reason why most PL relegation team struggle in the Championship the season after)
Players like Freeman & Robinson were probably not the best players in terms of football quality that we could have signed for their tranfer fee's, but they had two big advantages: A. Potential B. Would stick around if we would get relegated.
Not thinking about relegation as a newly promoted side is stupid (unless you were in a situation like Wolves), and the reason why all those relegated teams struggles in the Championship.