Hurry? Why? This is the first season of the 5 we've challenged for the title. And this needs to be seen in the context of poor Chelsea and Arsenal form. We're down to two competitions again. Villa are a few points behind and have spent a fraction of what Rafa has. And Utd, who have not been at their best this season look like they will pull away. I really like and admire Rafa and absolutely want him to do well - but I'm not convinced he'll reel in the grail (though I hope he does).
I havent posted much in the recent Rafa-debate threads, but when pure nonsense is put up in front of me, I feel a certain need to reply. Here you can see our net spending during the summer:
http://www.lfcreds.com/reds/index.php?topic=8206.0As a help, I can reveal its a total of 21.75 mio.
I cant find who Aston Villa sold in the summer, but I dont seem to remember any great outgoing transfers from them. Going through their team on wikipedia reveals that they bought:
Brad Friedel 2.5, Luke Young 6, Steve Sidwell 5, James Milner 12, Curtis Davies 9, Nicky Shorey est. 3. Total: 37,5 mio.
If you include the january transfer window, we sold Keane at around 16 and they bought Heskey at 3.5. Which gives us at net spending of around 6 mio, while Villa have bought for 41 mio.. Lets say they sold for between 5 and 10 mio. which gives them a net spending of 30-35 mio. So how do you get that Villa have spent a fraction of what we have? Even if you include more transfer windows, I dont think you get your desired "fraction", since players like Reo-Coker, Ashley Young, Stillian Petrov and John Carew didnt come in cheap.
Also, your argument is simply flawed. You say its no achievement to be ahead of Chelsea (allthough they have spent insane amount of money the last years) because they have "bad form". Also it is bad that we are only slightly ahead of Villa because we (in your argument) have spent a lot more than them (and thereby ignore the "form"-thing since Villa are showing really good form, but this was obviously only a valid argument when you talk about Chelsea. In the Villa-case its all a question of money). My point cut short: When you compare us to Chelsea its about form, when you compare us to Villa its about money. To make a valid argument you have to compare us to other teams on equal terms.
Anyway, I didnt want to go off-topic. I havent really made my mind up on wether this contract is deserved, how long it should be and so on, but what seems very clear is that the contract thing annoys Rafa quite a lot, so if that has any chance of making our title challenge more difficult, then we shouldnt take the chance. We've waited 19 years, and it would be too stupid if we lost it on something like that. I say get it signed as fast as possible.
