filopastry

Hardly, he's been a good player for us over the last few seasons he hasn't been a world beater though, contrary to the beliefs of many, and thats reflected in the relative lack of interest for his services now

Most people made up their mind that Xabi was world class in his first season (for obvious reasons) and have been looking at him through rose tinted glasses ever since.

I'm sure Crouch decided that he'd only sign for Pompey with no outside encouragement as well

Indeed

He's been off on holidays for the last 3 weeks and I think he's off this week as well

Electronic advertising generates cash, music after goals doesn't, I'd imagine thats the main difference

In any case there's not much point in pleading poverty and then going after your first big name of the summer and pretty much agreeign to the asking price pretty quickly, rather than going into a long drawn out haggling process in the hope of possibly getting a better price albeit at the risk of losing the player altogether. To be honest what Bascombe said rang true at the time and it appears that the owners have made a commitment since then to back more serious spending, for all those who think Bascombe now has no contacts at the club , he was still the first by a long way to link us to Malouda and Mancini this summer. Its just a shame he hasn't been around for 3 weeks and I believe isn't around for another week as well if only because nobody else seems to have much of a clue as to what our spending plans are now beyond Torres

Apparently its a translation of part of their club song Milan - only you

He's also not playing as frequently which can't help

Well I agree with you anyway

Can't really blame him personally, its not exactly an insignificant pay rise. Stupid money for West Ham to offer though and we were spot on not to be held to ransom over this one, although his flexibility being able to play anywhere along the back line would have been useful, with the lack of cover at RB and CB and Riise's poor form

I'd say in both those games Rafa's selections were questionable at best personally.

Indeed they are but if you're trying to bed in a s*** load of players then I'd say some relatively straightforward fixtures early on would be a significant advantage. In the end the poor form of a lot of the more experienced players was as much to blame for our poor start as any problems with the signings anyway. We waited until November for our season to really get going domestically, although whether that was down to improved confidence and form from us or just weaker opposition is something that we'll probably only find out for sure as the tougher fixtures come around again now.

Unfortunately they probably couldn't do much better than Hiddink as a replacement, this has been on the cards since everyone's favourite billionaire bankrolled the Russian national team signing him as manager

I'd agree with you on that one, but equally the run of tough aways at the start of the season stopped us getting any sort of momentum together, when we had a nice run of easier fixtures we then took advantage. It'll be interesting to see how we fare against the other members of the "Big 4" at home in the second half of the season. On the issue of cash I thought one of the reasons we were so happy to get Rafa was that he had shown at Valencia an ability to win a league while being at a financial disadvantage in the transfer market, and as others have said if you strip Chelsea out of the equation our spending has certainly been competitive while he's been in charge.

Its not just United's revival though is it, its the fact that we're pretty likely to end up with a considerably lower points total in the league than last year after a summer in which Rafa's had more money to spend than previously. I agree that given the number of signings a slow start was always a strong possibility especially with the fixture list not really allowing us to get much momentum and confidence goign early on. But it is vital that we step up in the league over the second half of the season, if we don't a lot of questions are going to be asked at.

To be honest I'm getting a bit bored of listening to the "we've got no money" comments. If you compare us to anyone outside of Chelsea and our spending's been competitive enough while Rafa's been here.

Its not a freedom of speech issue though is it, its an issue of the BBC, which we are all pretty much forced to fund no matter how much or little we use it, using our money to pay this ****.

United have been reasonably fortunate with injuries this year after their disaster on that front last season. I could see Chelsea reeling them in but I suspect we've left ourselves far too much to do

To be fair I think it was always goign to be difficult for some of the new signings to come in and contribute immediately, its a lot more difficult when so many of the players we've depended on last season are suddenly simultaneously playing well below their best. Also for all the talk of rotation, in midfield and defence, where we struggled badly yesterday, 8 of the 9 players were first choice in those positions last year as well, I'm not sure unfamiliarity alone explains too much

Crouch may be scoring but his all round play has not been at the level he's capable of this season

We may have been many things yesterday, but outplayed wasn't one of them. All round play was fine until the last 20 mins or so given its a difficult place to go and play football, but once again errors and missing chances cost us. Given the size of squad we have and the quality in it, we pretty much have to rotate anyway unless you want a fair number of our expensive new signings to be asking for a transfer next summer. Rotating or not it'll take the players time to gel this year, given the sheer number of new faces we brought in, its not helped by a few of the old faces not being at the top of their games either

Bit of a bizarre selection from Rafa alright, I could see the case for playing Crouch and Fowler in this game, just not both of them together. Just made it easier for Everton to play a higher line and compress play further which helped their midfield 5. If Robbie didn't last the full game when he'd had a rest for a week, we were chasing the game and had no strikers on the bench, I wonder how much of a future he has as a starting player at the club unless other striekrs are injured

I think to an extent Kuyt will take his place he may end up starting more than Crouch but both look the kind of players who put in a hell of a lot of work and therefore won't necessarily go the full 90 minutes too often, even if he isn't starting I'd always expect Crouch to be the striking option on the bench, in the absence of injuries I'd be more worried about how much playing time Fowler will get rather than Crouch

Mourinho, Rafa or Hiddink, a long way ahead of the other candidates for me