bigmick wrote:On a slight tangent with Keane, I wonder how people in the cold light of day view his signing? It's been said before that rafa has the fantastic quality of being a lucky manager (something which I wholeheartedly agree with) and when you look at his signings in the Summer last year, it would be hard to argue.
That we spent 28 million quid combined on Dossena and Keane is a matter of fact (and no I haven't seen the contracts, I wasn't present when they were signed etc but we can take it as a "presumed" fact anyway). Now most people have a view on Dossena (I personally think he is by a distance the managers worst signing) but few would agree that today he is either worth 7.5 million, or indeed was a good buy. Given the fact that Insua is obviously a fairly decent prospect and quite possibly better than that, unless he has developed out of all recognition over the last couple of months it's hard to see really why we needed the Italian. Particularly when you consider that Insua is already a better full-back than the "fishmonger", it looks all the more baffling.
In the case of Keane, we can conclude from the way that Rafa has handled him that he doesn't see him as a lone front man. You might also come to the conclusion that he doesn't see him as one of two either based on the last couple of weeks, but whatever, once again it's hard to argue he has either done fantastically well or was value at 20.5 million pounds. Some of us firmly believe that even though the Irishman was way overpriced, had we handled him better we would have got more return in terms of performance but that's kind of by the by really. Now Torres is back, and given the fact that Gerrard is quite simply undroppable (and in all probability playing in Keane's position while he's at it) it's hard to see Robbie getting too many games. This is particularly the case if we are going to leave him out when he scored two in three, so the question begs to be asked, why did we sign him then?
Now in the case of Insua, you could argue that he's suddenly got it as young players do sometimes. As such, you could argue that how was Rafa to know? We needed a left back to cover for the inevitable injuries to Aurelio and he simply bought the best one he could find. In the case of Gerrard being quite good though as an advanced midfielder/support striker, even those who believe he is "wasted" there and a better player in a different position would hardly deny that our captain was going to be anything but pretty good if he played there this season. This is particularly the case when you think we played him there during the "seeing of the light" period last season and formed a "match made in heaven" with Torres.
So now we arrive at a situation where we are top of the league and in with a great shout of winning it, despite spending 28 million quid on a fullback who is absolute garbage, and a striker who we won't play when he's scoring, and who can't get into the team if everyones fit. Were we not top of the league etc, there might be one or two questions by now about the transfers. Maybe's we should wait till we've won the league before we flog them off. That way, if we get 3 mill off some mugs for Dossena and 10 mill for Keane, nobody will give a feck about the 15 mill we've just spunked.
Lucky Manager
You decide
however, regarding posts of oddity I think you have the upper hand there. Looking at my earlier post I used a slight poetic licence to emphasise my point, nothing unusual there, and the point remains that these teams are now somehow tarnished when in fact we brought about their periods of circumspection, Man U lost having led the game, Chelsea lost their home invincibles tag that hit them both very hard and I take issue with some posters overlooking those FACTS. I am also rebelling against this percieved 'happy clappy free zone' that you and your mate have instigated albeit possibly subconsciously on your part, I'm still not ashamed of it and thank god others of my ilk go the match and moreover were there in Istanbul at half time(although I wasnt 
) I'd also like to add that I've seen Portsmouth with Diarra, Fulham, West Ham, Middlesb this season and while they're near the foot of the division they are very good and clever football teams chocka with internationals, now tell me, am I wrong?
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