We're Out - Whinge Here

[Guest]

We're on the way up again. 4th game without a defeat and we WON last night. We're starting to be difficult to beat again and this should be good for our confidence. We've got to build it from the base, and we're doing just that.

Roll on the rest of the season, trash Everton, win the league, the FA Cup and the Europa league and our season will be the best ever.

[red g]

So we don't have lots of money. How does he improve the playing staff? On paper we have a team that can win it, and if you want to mention last year, then last year proved it. We had bad injuries last season too. I don't buy it's about players. A good manager can motivate and organise any players at his disposal. I can't but think that Hiddink or Mourinho would be getting more out of these players. Jesus, at this point I just want to see us play some bloody football. It would be a start.

we have a team that can win it, but not a squad.
squads cost money.
IF we hafd spent 2.5million more and bought turner instead of the greek and managed to get Negredo or similar as back up to torres money would make a big difference

as for hiddink or mourinho getting more out of these players.....Rafa got us so close last year i dont think anyone of those 2 would have got us closer.

[Guest]

Rafa has my backing more than ever before. He's the one who'll bring us the holy grail. Shankly took what, 7 years before winning the league? Every new era needs time.

[FatTony]

Do you think our spending allows for a title challenge every year, or any year for that matter or are things like transfer fees and wages irrelevant to you?

Up until the last 12 months, our spending was enough to finish 3rd in the league, ahead of Arsenal and behind Manu and Chelsea. Some seasons we finished 4th, which was an underachievement, some seasons 3rd which was spot on for our expenditure. In most of these seasons, its fair to say we were out of the title race by the new year. What is actually is remarkable about that?

Any manager worth his salt would've finished 3rd or 4th, Rafa's league record at the club has been completely unremarkable. He over achieved last year, but imo that was more to do with Chelsea having that idiot Scolari there for most of the year, had Hiddink been there at the start, the form he had from when he took over would've won the league.

Rafa has achieved nothing exceptional in the premiership at all and as Rafa would say, thats a fact.

[Guest]

Up until the last 12 months, our spending was enough to finish 3rd in the league, ahead of Arsenal and behind Manu and Chelsea. Some seasons we finished 4th, which was an underachievement, some seasons 3rd which was spot on for our expenditure. In most of these seasons, its fair to say we were out of the title race by the new year. What actually is remarkable about that?

Any manager worth his salt would've finished 3rd or 4th, Rafa's league record at the club has been completely unremarkable. He over achieved last year, but imo that was more to do with Chelsea having that idiot Scolari there for most of the year, had Hiddink been there at the start, the form he had from when he took over would've won the league.

Rafa has achieved nothing exceptional in the premiership at all and as Rafa would say, thats a fact.

He's achieved the best he could have done with that squad and as you said he even 'overachieved'. That's ****ing impressive for any manager at the top level.

[FatTony]

Rafa has my backing more than ever before. He's the one who'll bring us the holy grail. Shankly took what, 7 years before winning the league? Every new era needs time.

why? that just sounds like blind faith

[FatTony]

He's achieved the best he could have done with that squad and as you said he even 'overachieved'. That's ****ing impressive for any manager at the top level.

Did you jst read that or not????

In the seasons he finished 4th he did not achieve the best he could. In the seasons we were out of the race by december, he had not achieved "the best he could".

That is not ****ing impressive...

[Guest]

why? that just sounds like blind faith

Because it is obvious that we're heading in the right direction. There's still a little bit less than 3/4 of the season to go and I'm sure as soon as we have all our players back and playing to their best we'll be storming the rest of the league season.

The real downside this season was not being able to build on the squad due to a lack of finances. This has disrupted Rafa's plans as he's had to wheel and deal again.

We're set nicely on the football side of things and I can foresee us being dominant in the future but this has direct correlations with how quick we get investment to give us the platform to kick on from where we are rather than remain at our current level. Fans are not usually realistic and that is why Rafa put brakes on talks of winning the title at the start of the season. We all got carried away.

[Guest]

Did you jst read that or not????

In the seasons he finished 4th he did not achieve the best he could. In the seasons we were out of the race by december, he had not achieved "the best he could".

That is not ****ing impressive...

We've always encountered better teams or squads in United and Chelsea and finishing second was an impressive feat and everyone thought we should have won it if we had some luck (rather the luck United had in their closing games).

Things has to be put in perspective. We've never had a better squad than Chelsea and United, maybe a better first XI but over the course of a season it's difficult to achieve their consistency. That's where we've failed.

For those reasons Rafa is doing very well because we are consistently in the top 4. We don't have any god given right to win things and football is directed by money those days, even though it is not the be all and end all.

[FatTony]

Because it is obvious that we're heading in the right direction. There's still a little bit less than 3/4 of the season to go and I'm sure as soon as we have all our players back and playing to their best we'll be storming the rest of the league season.

The real downside this season was not being able to build on the squad due to a lack of finances. This has disrupted Rafa's plans as he's had to wheel and deal again.

We're set nicely on the football side of things and I can foresee us being dominant in the future but this has direct correlations with how quick we get investment to give us the platform to kick on from where we are rather than remain at our current level. Fans are not usually realistic and that is why Rafa put brakes on talks of winning the title at the start of the season. We all got carried away.

we're in the europa cup and closer to relegation than the top. We now have another 2 clubs that have squads at the same value or a little more than ours.

has this really disrupted Rafa's plans? at the end of the day Rafa wanted to sell Alonso last season for £10m, he managed to get £30m from Real. This allowed him to purchase his second target Aquilani. This money also allowed him to put replace Arbeloa with another target in £20m Johnson. So, in essence, he's sold one player he wanted to and replaced him with his target, and improved on the right back position. How has this really disrupted things?


Thats just pure optimism and nothing else.

[FatTony]

We've always encountered better teams or squads in United and Chelsea and finishing second was an impressive feat and everyone thought we should have won it if we had some luck (rather the luck United had in their closing games).

Things has to be put in perspective. We've never had a better squad than Chelsea and United, maybe a better first XI but over the course of a season it's difficult to achieve their consistency. That's where we've failed.

For those reasons Rafa is doing very well because we are consistently in the top 4. We don't have any god given right to win things and football is directed by money those days, even though it is not the be all and end all.

Had Hiddink been there from the start, we would've finished 3rd.

That doesn't mean that he's doing very well though, it just means that the 3rd most expensive squad (until this year), has finished 3rd or 4th. With the other clubs not having the finances they have now (Spurs, Villa, Citeh) you could argue that we should've been a lot closer to the top than we have been for the majority of Rafa's time.

[Guest]

we're in the europa cup and closer to relegation than the top. We now have another 2 clubs that have squads at the same value or a little more than ours.

has this really disrupted Rafa's plans? at the end of the day Rafa wanted to sell Alonso last season for £10m, he managed to get £30m from Real. This allowed him to purchase his second target Aquilani. This money also allowed him to put replace Arbeloa with another target in £20m Johnson. So, in essence, he's sold one player he wanted to and replaced him with his target, and improved on the right back position. How has this really disrupted things?


Thats just pure optimism and nothing else.

Optimism is what drives me through life.

Our first 11 is better than last year's. We have had too many injuries to key players and we haven't had the opportunity to field a settled defence the whole season to date.

That is why we need to put things in perspective. Rafa didn't have the funds to build the depth of the squad. He's improved its overall quality by buying better players (arguably as the judgement of one player may differ). Johnson is an attacking player, young, can score goals and has loads of room for improvement still. Aquilani looks to be a very good signing, is younger than Alonso and another one who will improve.

Injuries has ruined our season. If we had unlimited funds available I'm sure Rafa would have bought David Villa, Silva and al, but he didn't.

So, until he is given £150m and blows it away with crap players and it is obvious we're heading nowhere, I'll still be backing him and giving him time. I think he's doing really well still, so I can't see him cocking up if he's given more money.

For a start, fans should stop reading the papers.

[Guest]

Had Hiddink been there from the start, we would've finished 3rd.

That doesn't mean that he's doing very well though, it just means that the 3rd most expensive squad (until this year), has finished 3rd or 4th. With the other clubs not having the finances they have now (Spurs, Villa, Citeh) you could argue that we should've been a lot closer to the top than we have been for the majority of Rafa's time.

You read too much papers, no offence mate but you're completely off the mark.

Hiddink? How do you know he would have done better? You're speculating here.

3rd most expensive squad???? Have you accounted the players he sold and how much money he's actually 'spent'??? If by expensive you mean the value it has now compared to what it had 5 years ago then I'll agree with you.

We'll finish well above Spurs, Villa and City. Chill out.

[FatTony]

You read too much papers, no offence mate but you're completely off the mark.

Hiddink? How do you know he would have done better? You're speculating here.

3rd most expensive squad???? Have you accounted the players he sold and how much money he's actually 'spent'??? If by expensive you mean the value it has now compared to what it had 5 years ago then I'll agree with you.

We'll finish well above Spurs, Villa and City. Chill out.

i dont read the papers...
if u take hiddinks form from when he actually took over chelsea and averaged that over the season he would've won the league.
Yes, the value of the club, until this season the value of this squad was the 3rd most expensive

You read too many rcdnw posts

[BFG]

Eh, overacheived? We've won a CL, an FAC. having spent more than everyone except ManUre and Chelski. Hardly overachievement. A league or two, another FAC perhaps, but we have not overachieved ffs. I judge a manager on what he wins.

Yes, overachieved.

Arsenal, and Man Utd already had a decade of building on us and Chelsea and Utd have had pools of cash to dip into whenever an apparent weakness appears in their squads. Contrary to what some people think we have no devine right to win anything and the fact that we're outraged at going out of the Champions League in the group stages proves that we've made huge progress. Look back a few years and it felt like a huge achievement just to be in the group stages and that was when very average Newcastle sides were competing with us for a group place.

We've won a European Cup, been to another final, won an FA Cup and been painfully close to winning the league when it was at it's strongest perhaps in history and although we're all hurt at recent results the squad is many fold better than it was when Rafa came. For the relatively little we've spent that's a good performance from where I'm sitting.