A major complaint aimed at Rafa is that he doesn't know who his best 11 players are, but if he had the players he really wanted, who of our current squad would make the starting line-up?
Reina
Carra Agger
Alonso Gerrard
Kuyt (possibly)
If you think of United, you know who their best 11 players are, because when Ferguson needed to strength, he had a good enough base to add to, the same can be said about Arsenal, when Wenger arrived they already had the best defence in England, and Bergkamp. And Mourinho came into a squad that already had massive investment and added hundreds of millions towards that. (The fact that he is complaining about his squad being too thin is ridiculous).
Benitez came in with nothing. At the time of his arrival there were 2 players that were essential Gerrard and Owen (Carra has become essential under Rafa imo) and he lost Owen. There is talk that he has been given £65m; but that is to fund a squad of 22 players, not to advance what was already there.
The closest situation to Rafa is where Ferguson was when he first arrived at United, and it took him many years until he had a team good enough to compete. It just goes to show what an incredible job Rafa has done here.
From this point though, two things can happen:
1. No investment
If Rafa sticks around it will still take many years before the squad is ready to even compete for the title. In this age though, time is not available, even if you have won the European Cup, FA Cup and attained your highest league points total in 15 years; in your first 2 seasons. Unfortunately, without investment, I feel it will only be a matter of time before the scum overtake our league titles record.
2. Investment
With this Rafa will have the money to get the players he needs; and I have complete faith in his ability to turn us into a title winning side. It's impossible to say we will win immediately under him, but given the resources we will be in a position to compete.
Without investment, we better get used to the way we are feeling at the moment, because battling it out for a champions league spot is the best we can hope for.
Reina
Carra Agger
Alonso Gerrard
Kuyt (possibly)
If you think of United, you know who their best 11 players are, because when Ferguson needed to strength, he had a good enough base to add to, the same can be said about Arsenal, when Wenger arrived they already had the best defence in England, and Bergkamp. And Mourinho came into a squad that already had massive investment and added hundreds of millions towards that. (The fact that he is complaining about his squad being too thin is ridiculous).
Benitez came in with nothing. At the time of his arrival there were 2 players that were essential Gerrard and Owen (Carra has become essential under Rafa imo) and he lost Owen. There is talk that he has been given £65m; but that is to fund a squad of 22 players, not to advance what was already there.
The closest situation to Rafa is where Ferguson was when he first arrived at United, and it took him many years until he had a team good enough to compete. It just goes to show what an incredible job Rafa has done here.
From this point though, two things can happen:
1. No investment
If Rafa sticks around it will still take many years before the squad is ready to even compete for the title. In this age though, time is not available, even if you have won the European Cup, FA Cup and attained your highest league points total in 15 years; in your first 2 seasons. Unfortunately, without investment, I feel it will only be a matter of time before the scum overtake our league titles record.
2. Investment
With this Rafa will have the money to get the players he needs; and I have complete faith in his ability to turn us into a title winning side. It's impossible to say we will win immediately under him, but given the resources we will be in a position to compete.
Without investment, we better get used to the way we are feeling at the moment, because battling it out for a champions league spot is the best we can hope for.
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