Damian_de

It's true.

Mascherano Lucas Reina

Just because Rafa wanted to sell Alonso doesn't follow that he took his abilities for granted, or underrated him, or didn't like him, or any of the myriad other bizarre leaps of illogic that get bandied about. Rafa decided that for the team to evoilve we need to be stuffing the teams we had been drawing with. Realistically he couldn't afford to keep Alonso AND sign another CM in the mould he wanted, so he tried to sell to raise funds for the new player who would IMPROVE THE TEAM. He didn't hate him, or take him for granted. It's business. Nothing more, nothing less. Seeing as how we've been unable to see how Aquilani and the rest of the obvious first teamers play together we can't know for sure how successful the change will be. But it's the name of the game, you can't stand still, you need to keep evolving, especially if we are serious about challenging for the title.

Thank f*** the players themselves have got more bottle than the fans.

I honestly think we'll be fine We're having terrible luck, and we're still within 3 points of CL qualification next season presuming everyone else wins their games in hand. The title is probably gone, but hey, no divine right to win it. In the CL this season - anything can still happen. No crisis until we're knocked out early and seriously mid table after Christmas at the very least. We all want to win the league, but whats with all the spoiled brat stuff? As for the subs yesterday, I hope Rafa writes in his biography that he did it just to do the Internet warriors' heads in, I would laugh so hard.

If you have a listen to the podcast there is a discussion about Darby and the fact that he's too small to make the breakthrough, in the context of Rafa's general unhappiness at the physical development of the youth team players. He won't play today, or perhaps ever.

But keep dreaming.

Deary me, defo penalty. As someone said, happy to swap for Henchoz.

If Voronin made this much effort all the time he might be ok...

Another vote for goodness from N'Gog today, doing some nice things. Would be rude not to mention Insua and that shot, friggin' brilliant!

Capello would be boss. Winter could start bitching about how he doesn't put an arm round the players, meanwhile Rafa takes over England (to pass the time) and brings the hands off approach required to get the best out of the hard to motivate squad.

I'd go so far as to say the only situation in which it might be warranted is if we get relegated. I know I shouldn't, but... some believe part of the deal is designed to prevent him mouthing off too much. That said, no one knows that for sure, I guess it comes from a journo surmising... It's ridiculous to expect Rafa wouldn't have been lied to in the contract negotiations (about financing, or anything else), when all the evidence is that those 2 do lie ALL THE FRIGGING TIME

It wasn't a must win game. I'm not saying we didn't want to win it, but we can still qualify, and have done from a worse position than this before.

Completely disagree.

We can still qualify as it is, so even a draw would have been OK. There's a difference between managers and fans about the big picture - fans can be completely lose the plot after a defeat (or 4...) but the manager has to think about the season as a whole, or even how the next 4 or 5 seasons might pan out, for example, when it comes to transfer strategy. One seemingly odd substitution is meaningless in the context.

The team that finishe dthe game isn'y anything like the best team though, so what does it matter? We all know we haven't got much strength in depth, and we know why - because the money hasn't been made available to build a squad. I'd be amazed if Rafa got sacked even if we get stuffed at the weekend. f*** me, can you imagine?

Good effort - faded, and will likely shoulder a bit of the blame. But he definitely has the attributes to serve as the focal point in our attack.

Read what you just wrote there and have a think about it. He's had 5 years to assemble a squad... and has been doing rather nicely until getting utterly shafted by the owners. Get a grip, man, it's now that a bit of faith actually matters!

You sure thats the doom and gloom edition? Or is that the next one?

Loblaw for President! Never seen purer BS.

We aren't out yet, and yes, this is all down to the owner situation. Cheers

What, like in 2006? Or 2002? or 1998? I think they might do OK next time around, as you say, very good manager and favourable conditions, but there are plenty of things need to go well for them - a keeper needs to step up and perform for 7/8 games, Ferdinand might be shot... France managed to win it without a quality striker, but they did have ZZ in behind...

We sold Alonso for a world record fee for someone in that position, spent nothing like as much on a replacement, and then the cupboard was bare.

Poor performance for sure, but I would imagine we practice 3 at the back in training quite a bit, so unlikely to have been out of the players' experience.

Excellent pun about Dossena? Thing is, with the Keane and Alonso money disappearing into a black hole somewhere, you can't blame Rafa for refusing to strip the squad any further if he didn't think he'd see the money come back for reinforcements. My point being the balance looks off because he probably thought there'd be money for one or 2 more in the areas we are short. There's a reason we don't have those players, or players 'like' those, and that's because they are a million miles out of our reach financially at the moment, and are too good to be bench players. They aren't back ups, and they are very expensive. There aren't many players of that quality around, and this summer we had the Real Madrid/Man City silly season - hardly anyone bought players of that calibre. I know we're all disappointed with the form this season, but from Rafa's perspective he is trying to build a squad which can win the league, and that can't be done over night. You add to what you have piece by piece. This summer the obvious big piece added was Johnson, and hopefully Aquillani will also be a key player in a squad that can challenge. Added to that a lot of the crucial pieces already in place were tied down to long term deals (although we all know that shouldn't have come out of the transfer kitty, but there it is). So yeah, we're lacking in cover for Torres, but IMO Rafa isn't 'mad for blowing all his cash on a full back' (who we needed), he's playing a longer game, building a squad piece by piece, unable to spunk £100M+ and buy a team like Chelsea/Man City. He knows we need cover up front, and we need more creativity from wide, he just doesn't have the money to buy it all at once. In the past he strengthened the squad generally, buying several middle price and quality players at once, but now we are at the point where we need to be adding quality. Reina, Aurelio, Insua, Agger, Skrtel, Carra, Johnson, Lucas, Mascherano, Aquillani, Riera, Benayoun, Kuyt, Gerrard, Torres - all those are capable of playing a role in a title challenging side in my opinion, and most if not all are on deals with several years remaining. We need a bit more, but given the circumstances with the owners, what choice is there but to add the rest one piece at a time, while trying to keep hold of what you've got?