heimdall wrote:bigmick wrote:Nan I would have been made up if we'd signed Bent to be honest, yes. I've been saying for a long time that we need a viable and credible alternative to our star front man, and the Sunderland match didn't reach us anything we didn't already know about Kuyt as a striker, Voronin or N'Gog. Bent is a good player, arguably a very good one, and Sunderland stole him for 10 million quid, absolutely nicked him.
I did read on here about Turner, and yes my feeling is also that we couldn't afford him after we'd bought Johnson and Aquilani. Yes you could say that the owners could have backed Rafa more (and I'd agree with you to be honest, I've said that many times) but Rafa did get to spend 39 million quid or whatever it was on players, add ons or no add ons. I know we brought almost all of that in through the sale of Alonso, but you could equally argue that the likes of Man Utd and Arsenal came nowhere near spending the transfer money which they brought in, finishing hugely in credit over the Summer.
I'm not going to get into talking about any Portuguese fellas on here, and in all honesty I'm reluctant to get into another in depth disection of Rafa's record, his spend and all the rest. I've taken a fair bit of flak these last two weeks and unusually for me I haven't got the stomach for it today.
Ultimately of course, people make their own judgement. You look at the team, how long the manager has been here, the players that have been through, how good the squad currently is, how many trophies we have won and are likely to win in your opinion, how good we were last season and how much we have progressed to this season, how we are performing relative to other clubs given their spend and the length of time their managers have been there etc etc. You weigh all of that up, and you come to a conclusion whether or not you think the achievements match your ambition for the team.
I've always had the utmost respect for anybodies opinion that they think Rafa is the right man for the job, he is doing the best that is possible under the circumstances, nobody else could improve on what he is doing given the resources available, nobody else could get this bunch of players to achieve more than they are etc. They have obviously considered the factors which I mentioned earlier and come to that conclusion which is absolutely fine. I considered the same things and came to a different conclusion quite a long time ago now, and I can't help that. that doesn't mean though that I think we should ditch a manager in October, that would be madness.
So are you saying that all managers would play Lucas and Mashca in the center of park starving Stevie of Nando of any decent passes. I highly doubt that.
Are you also saying that all managers woudl openly criticise their senior players instead of maybe looking at themsleve sin the mirror and putting there hand up to tactical naiivity, again I doubt it.
Anyway you've certainly changed your tune, wasn't so long ago you were baying for Rafa's blood now you calim to have always supported him
You're making yourself look silly Heimy.
Rafa is widely accepted to be THE man when it comes to tactics. Of all the things you level at him - that one is the daftest.