it was meant to be sarcasm btw..
thanks for explaining
but your post, the 'now that's patronising' post, wasn't sarcastic. I don't know what it was, but I know sarcasm when I see it typed (usually) and that was not sarcasm.
You really aren't having a good day are you?
I'm not trying to be insulting, but that comment really strikes me as ignorant.
When Rafa arrived, apart from Gerrard and Sami/Carra, who was any good? Almost the whole team needed replacing, and on a budget of approx £10m per year. Rafa had a strategy of buying players who wouldn't win the Premier League but would do a job and he could make a profit on, which is why I grouped Bellamy, Crouch and Pennant together.
We paid over the odds on Pennant, Rafa admitted it at the time, but we needed a right winger and not many were available. The only 'fault', if you can call it that, that Rafa made is thinking Pennant would agree to be sold rather than sit on the bench and wind his contract down.
It really is gauling that people don't appreciate how shrewd Rafa has been to get us where we are. Do you really think he'd rather buy Pennant than better wingers if he had the money?
Indeed, we don't even need to speculate, because we know that his main target was Alves, Pennant was only signed after our board, in all it's infinite wisdom, thought £12million was an insane fee for the most promising right sided player in the world bar Ronaldo at that time, sold a mere 2 seasons later for a paltry triple that amount.
That's the thing for me - Rafa's transfer record as it stands competes very well with that of his rivals. Sure, Wenger beats him for profit but I don't think anyone has made much better signings in terms of consistent quality - yet unlike his rivals Rafa's conistently operated with one hand tied behind his back, never having the final say of how to split the budget (even though it's his team, and we lured him from Valencia on a promise to not do what we, in fact, did in terms of transfer control), never having the full backing of the board behind his judgement.
Take that into account and his record is beyond reproach.
Oh, and Pennant's a fool - him and Keane are like peas in a pod, pair of selfish, whining gits with a capacity for honest self-assesment dwarfed by the average politician.
