bigmick wrote:Earlier in the season many people were comparing Keane to Berbatov, along the lines of "well look at who the Mancs spunked 30 million on, he's no better". The truth is, he wasn't either. Pundits and fans alike questioned the fee and whether the Bulgarian was good enough. No doubt some still do, but if you compare and contrast Ferguson's treatment of his big signing with Rafa's treatment of his, there is a glaring difference.
At every opportunity, he has been picked for starters (Berbatov that is). This is even the case when Tevez is waiting in the wings and has looked sharp when he's played. It would have been oh so easy to drop a misfiring Berbatov and stick with Tevez, but they haven't done that in the main. Ferguson has picked him and praised him up, both for his efforts and for his attitude. Never at any stage has there been any doubt left in anyones mind that the manager fully believed in the player, and that he fully endorsed the view that he would prove a good buy.
Contrast to Keane where he has barely completed a full match. He has rarely started the next match if he scored a goal in the previous one, and has never started a match in the immediate aftermath of scoring twice. Praise and obvious belief in the player have been rare in the extreme recently, both in interviews and in actions. The thing has deteriorated to such an extent that you now have the absolutely ridiculous spectacle of Rafa's pet journalist spinning that the manager tried to block the signing of Keane. I'll bet that's doing wonders for the players demeanour, and to me this is a terrible way to carry on.
In the same circumstances, anybody who had an ounce of appreciation of how the human mind and confidence works would be in the press straight away putting that rumour to bed. "Lets make it clear here and now, I signed Robbie Keane. Not Rick Parry, not anyone else. Me and me alone. I did it because I believe he is a really top player, and I still do. He hasn't produced his best yet, but he will. I'm looking forward to when Robbie starts playing as we all know he can, then we are going to find all the journalists who said he was a waste of money and laugh in their face. There's no worries about Robbie Keane, you mark my words. He's a fecking brilliant player".
I nicked the last bit from an interview a few years back. It was Ferguson when he was talking about Juan Sebastian Veron. As it turned out, Veron never really did reproduce the form which had made him a 28 million pound player. He was still fairly decent though, and at least he can't say he wasn't given every opportunity. It's a bit like Berbatov, he's been given every chance. I'm not a stat man by any means, but my impression is that he's beginning to find his feet as well, coming up with the odd important goal. He looks to me like he's starting to settle, starting to believe in himself and show confidence. Keane on the other hand looks like he really isn't enjoying life or football too much. Funny that, or at least it would be if RAFA hadn't signed him six months ago for 20 million quid.
And then he wants more control over transfers, after this Summers dealingsFeck me you couldn't make it up.
I can't argue with any of that. I'm a BIG Rafa supporter and always have been but the eccentricities are starting to pile up when it comes to how he handles players. I've said before that I didn't like how he went about putting Alonso in the shop window this summer, I've always been a little uncomfortable with what happened with Crouchie and I now I can see very little sense in how Keane has been used. Out of those three examples we can thank our lucky stars that the Alonso transfer fell through, but the other two situations are looking to be substantial mistakes. I simply cannot fathom Rafa sometimes.
