You sell fringe players for 2/3 mil each and buy one good player in a position you need for 10 mil (that way you keep the ex first team player as backup), you don`t sell the better players from your first eleven and weaken it.
Up to the other teams to beat us Dave, if we use the same tactics in every game then it is poor that other managers can`t combat it.
That's easy to do if you already have a big squad, we didn't! Diego Cavalieri (aged 26) Pepe Reina (aged 26) Charles Itandje (aged 26) Andrea Dossena (aged 27) Sami Hyypiä (aged 35) Daniel Agger (aged 24) Fábio Aurélio (aged 29) Ãlvaro Arbeloa (aged 25) Emiliano Insúa (aged 19) Jamie Carragher (aged 30) Philipp Degen (aged 25) Martin Kelly (aged 18) Martin Å krtel (aged 24) Steven Gerrard (aged 28) Xabi Alonso (aged 27) Yossi Benayoun (aged 28) Javier Mascherano (aged 24) Lucas (aged 21) Jay Spearing (aged 20) Damien Plessis (aged 20) Nabil El Zhar (aged 22) Robbie Keane (aged 28) Fernando Torres (aged 24) Albert Riera (aged 26) Dirk Kuyt (aged 28) Ryan Babel (aged 22) David N'Gog (aged 19) There are six players in there that are 21 and under, with Babel and El Zhar at 22.
Keane, Riera and Babel would have raised enough to strengthen your fist eleven and give you an extra decent squad player.
Your comparing the Chelsea squad to ours from 05? I don't think any, or very few anyway, managers would have won the CL with that squad. We got a bit lucky no doubt but to them nearly go and do it again 2 years later? Like I said earlier Rafa was a master at setting up a team to get a result away from home and finishing the job back at Anfield. For some reason he doesn't get the respect he deserves in England, maybe cos he didn't bend over n take it from Ferguson like 90% of other managers, but across Europe he's highly respected coach n manager.
rafa wasn't thwarted by us going for players that had options to move to bigger clubs or were unrealistically priced. his first choice players weren't highly sought after or that expensive. He was undone by club management telling him he couldn't have his first choices.
That wasn't his 1st choice. Wasn't all a money issue, he was constantly being told to find alternative targets, that sometimes cost more. The owners didn't believe his 1st choice players were 'right' for the club, Barry is a great example of that. Rafa saw Barry as a perfect fit for the team he wanted to play, the owners didn't think Barry was 'right' (big enough name etc) for Lfc, which was bollocks of course, so Rafa had to find alternative. Of course it didn't help that all this nonsense had pissed off Alonso meaning we HAD to find someone else.
