That being said I can absolutely see the point of many on here and the frustrations they feel about Rafa.
Without sounding like a broken record you cannot underestimate the loss of Alonso. He has left a massive void in our team and Rafa must take the blame for him leaving in the summer.
The jury has to be out with regards the summer signing and I think I could have done better if I had £39m in the summer. Johnson is a very good player but £18m for a RB!!! Aquilani...well who knows but apparently a 15 min appearance for the reserves last night has given many hope that he is better than what we have in MF at the moment, although that's hardly surprising given it's Lucas (who is hopeless) and Mascherano (who doesn't look like he wants to play for us anymore) as the incumbent shirt fillers in MF.
Having watched a lot of Liverpool over the past few weeks you look at the likes of Lorik Cana and Lee Cattermole (as well as Michael Turner) at Sunderland and think they would do a v.good for us (esp Cana who I rate highly). Then Krankjar goes to Spurs for < £3m

You then look at who we were linked with...Negredo, Barry, Poulson, Deffour etc etc and I think £39m could have secure 2 or 3 of these players.
Our "squad" hasn't improved on last year and that coupled with the injuries is why we are where we are at the moment. Rafa has to take the blame for that.