Jesus I know we made the £30m profit in the summer but we did spend £55m whichever way you cut it. If Rafa is sulking about support then he can **** off, he's had it great. I don't think he will be, I don't think he will be bothered in the slightest.
Not fussed about the signings, think we have enough to get by comfortably for promotion. What I am worried about is Rafa was in the press saying "yeah we want to do deals" and we didn't do them. Seem's to me finances have overshadowed the managers wishes which is a problem going forwards. Rafa will stick it out this season and if he is to stay longer Ashley will have to pledge a metric **** tonne for the summer war chest. We have a good basis of 15 players or so who will do a job (keeping heads above water - mid table) but we still need to spend 80-100m in the summer now for me.
I've been thinking for a while that we should really be offering Rafa a new deal in the summer (assuming we get promoted), similar to what Liverpool did with Klopp after his first season. I doubt that would be an easy negotiation after this window, if you believe that Rafa has been let down anyway.
Shelvey getting injured for the season would certainly cast a little doubt on automatic promotion. We should have done something in CM.
Possibly but only if we refuse to adapt and learn from the mistakes of his previous absence. If we just intend to play the same way which is clearly reliant on him then yes, we should have done something. But there are many ways to get the same job done and all Rafa has to do is use his squad and adjust his tactics. Neither McCarthy or Townsend could have done the Shelvey role. McCarthy does more box to box with defensive qualities and Townsend is obviously a wide man. For whatever reason Rafa doesn't feel he needs back up for Shelvey. I'm fine with that if he can switch formations and use pace wide to stretch and create. If not then yeah its a bit baffling.
Everything is going on the right direction so let's not allow the scars of yesterday to blight our future
Right about the signings, I don't get why we collectively felt these two players were essential. McCarthy is just a more developed Isaac Hayden. But we have Hayden.... We've been underperforming (to a degree) because of formations, being too cautious and playing too many defenders, not because of the quality of squad (IMHO). In terms of Shelvey, Rafa is building his team around Jonjo. I think he feels Jonjo has the potential to be one of the best. So how can you buy someone to be second fiddle? You can't, really, not at a level where you don't notice he's gone. Shelvey's a bit of a rare thing, like Cabaye, so the issue here is that our tactics need to evolve when he's not in the team - but isn't that what Diame, Hayden, Colback, Anita, Barlaser are for? I don't know why, when Shelvey's out, we haven't dropped the 4-2-3-1, gone 4-4-2 and used the middle to break things up, but the wings to attack. Instead we put Colback in and wonder why the play slows down so much. Even so, tactics aside, our development squad and scouting network are both utter gash. We can't throw cash around like the big clubs, sure, but the amount of talent coming out of Everton, Southampton is frightening. Even the Boro and mackems have decent young players. Look at someone who we probably did enquire about - Tom Cairney. He's had a good four months - so £20m is the price! The market's insane, but why aren't we able to find a 'Tom Cairney' in June?
