taking off keane counter productive.

[rage]

what a waste of money. cisse offered more, crouch was a far far better striker and i honestly think pongolle could do everything keane does and more.

[Sarb]

what a waste of money. cisse offered more, crouch was a far far better striker and i honestly think pongolle could do everything keane does and more.

Was thinking about Cisse....don't think he was given a proper go by Rafa. Yeah he chose the wrong option on many occasions but Babel is similar yet Rafa spent £11m on him. If guided properly I'm sure he would have made it. He's scoring plenty at Sunderland and looks a proper goalscorer

Dww, I take what you're saying but to me if Keane is left on the bench, after all the fuss made in the summer on signings and backing the manager with money, the owners wouldn't take it too well if their £20m is sitting on the bench, along with £11m Babel and £8m Lucas

[dww]

Was thinking about Cisse....don't think he was given a proper go by Rafa. Yeah he chose the wrong option on many occasions but Babel is similar yet Rafa spent £11m on him. If guided properly I'm sure he would have made it. He's scoring plenty at Sunderland and looks a proper goalscorer

Dww, I take what you're saying but to me if Keane is left on the bench, after all the fuss made in the summer on signings and backing the manager with money, the owners wouldn't take it too well if their £20m is sitting on the bench, along with £11m Babel and £8m Lucas

I can see that point but I think they should be (made) aware that it is a squad game and that putting Keane on the bench is part of getting him to play better. If at the end of the season he is still on the bench then he would certainly be a failure and Rafa would have to deal with that but if he was there for a couple of games and then showed real quality things would be different. Not changing anything and playing him without either altering his role in the squad or on the pitch while it is not working would seem to me to be as likely to cost Rafa as the alternative presented.

The investment has improved the team and squad and while I'll give you the Babel fee the one for Lucas at the time was estimated as being as low as £5m and seems to creep up every year as people want to make it an issue (I'd argue £5m isn't too bad for a bench player for a CL team).