Owzat wrote:s@int wrote:I don't think we have the finance to sack him, and I can't see him walking without a big payoff. So unless Madrid decide to come in for him (looking less likely by the game) I think he will stay until the summer.
Is that a good reason to stick with a manager? Hope that somehow this is a blip, that next season will improve? If the CL money is as much as is claimed then missing out on the CL could cost us more than sacking Rafa, I think it is something that HAS TO BE CONSIDERED even if it is not followed through. Losing to Chelsea is acceptable, but surely the manager can't be absolved of fault for losing games like Lyon and villa at home, Fulham and Sunderland away. They are four games that we should be winning, certainly not losing all of them. If we merrily write off games like Sunderland and Fulham away as excusable because player X, Y and Z were missing then prepare yourself for Europe League football.
While many may feel this is a 'one-off', 'in Rafa we trust' and all that, do people not fear that this side could be dismantled piece by piece? Alonso has gone, the first "big player" we've sold and our prospects of holding on to others may rest in the hands of the manager and what he can (or can't) do. If we don't qualify for the Champions League, not a worst case scenario but a quite possible eventuality, not only could that impact on players wanting to stay but also on players wanting to come here. That would make the "big payoff" seem like nothing, I'd rather spend £20m-£39m on getting the manager right than have him spend it on three players summer in, summer out without strengthening the squad ie the manager is often wasting it, surely what could prove 'wisely spent' might be worth it?!?!?
What people might find is new owners don't come and 'rescue' the club, I for one have no faith in Rafa's spending patterns and expect even if he had £100m to spend that we might well end up with a list of signings like Barry, Santa Cruz, Lescott etc for silly money. Rafa lets himself get mugged at the best of times, I mean who priced Johnson at £17.5m and wtf priced Keane at £20.3m!?!?!?!? Fair enough you probably can't do simple addition and say we could have spent 'that £38.8m' on Villa or Silva, but it seriously begs questions of the manager's transfer acumen. And sure other managers make mistakes with buys, but does their squad contain Lucas, Plessis, Voronin, Diego, Degen, Dossena, Babel, El Zhar and Kyrgiakos. That's nine signings of the 'nothing special' variety, I've not included the kids like Ayala, Spearing and Eccleston who've played in the Premiership for us, our manager opted to buy two players with 96% of our budget and left the squad so thin we had to play them.
The selling clubs priced those players at the price they were bought for unfortunatly its a sellers market and prices have been inflated for a while so you have to expect to pay up to 10 mil plus on top of what they are actually worth .