Bamaga man wrote:Leonmc0708 wrote:stmichael wrote:I feel this had to be said given the stick (some of it justified) that the people in charge of this club received last summer over our transfer activity. Many fans felt that the board did not sufficiently back the manager as they had done to previous managers such as Houllier and I feel they may have had a point.
I'll be honest, I'm not Rick Parry's greatest fan but, skint or not no one can accuse him and Moores of not backing Rafa well this summer. The only target we missed out on was Alves because his price was simply too high. Whilst i was gutted at the time and remain so, the board deserve a lot of credit for this summer. They have got every single top target Rafa has wanted bar one and in that case they managed to get in his second choice.
Kuyt £10m
Gonzalez £4m
Aurelio (free)
Palleta £2m
Bellamy £6m
Pennant £6.7m
Thats an outlay of around £30m which is fantastic and shows we're trying to compete with Chelsea as best we can for the title. Let us just hope that these players Rafa has brought in are worth the money becauise if they are (and everyone i've seen play has been very good so far) then our squad is as complete as it has ever been.
This is the key thing for me.
I know hindsight is a wonderful thing and its only been a couple of games that Pennants played and Kuyt is yet to dot the i's on his contract but:
Would you rather we had signed Alves and not got Kuyt as well, or are you (retrospectively) very happy with Pennant and Kuyt ?
What about you, what do you think ?
mmm...that alves deal is a tricky one... say we signed him for 12 mill or whatever and also got Kuyt...
A 12 mill signing will sure start in the RM role...right ?! that leaves us with Alonso or Sissoko to drop for us to play Gerrard in CM ! mmm... much as i rate Alves, i think we have a better overall starting 11 with Alonso and Sissoko and Gerrard starting...
As for him starting in RB instead of finnan...i think he would have been really good going forward but...his defensive game is not better than finnans ! im not saying finnan is a better better than Alves is but... given what finnan adds to the club in defense, i wouldnt be looking for a replacement next season...
Our defense is great...and it was what made us look so solid last season....the likes of sissoko and finnan....and ofcourse Carra and Hyypia too. ! but... Alves signing would have meant that Sissoko or Finnan would probably be dropped from the starting 11 and i really rather have Pennant as a sub to gerrard, starting when we decide to rest 1 of our CMs.
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