Agreed, we are now in a position where we can focus on quality ahead of quantity but it hasn't always been that way. We had a lot of dead wood to replace when Rafa first joined, and those players all needed replacing. Now that we're starting to see the base of the squad that Rafa wants we can start to focus on just getting the missing pieces rather than a total overhaul.
Yep hit the nail on the head. Rafa truly is a genius, people who want him out seem not to realise he is building, some of it obvious some behind the scenes but he is building. All we need now is just the final players who will fill the gaps we are missing.
Key points in rafas building to me are:
The spine he has built- Reina, Carragher, Mascherano, Gerrard, Torres. Perfect spine leading from the back of the field to the front. Agger is nearly part and i think Alonso would be in my books but i have an extremely high opinion of him as a player so im a bit biased
.
The removal of dead wood - If you dont perform your out its simple as that with rafa, sounds negative but its the only way to progress, one player i do think left too soon was Mark Gonzalez but perhaps that is due to Babel being the only decent option for the left side at the moment (doing a great job but i think we do need backup)
Youth - Every serious fan knows about our youth setup, Doing fantastically in the league and now they are in america and just won the first game 7-1 and that was without Nemeth
. Some great players with huge potential such as Nemeth, Spearing, Insua, Mikel San Jose (feel free to add more) looking like they could be pushing for a first team place next season. And even the Guys out on loan like Anderson, Hammill and Nikholay Mihaylov (sp?).
Progression in tactics - Rafa is great at getting to know players strengths and weaknesses and that has been demonstrated with some of his formation set ups, The 4-2-3-1 is working wonders and its not the first time we have seen rafa use a formation that was rather unexpected but genius. Even last season when we had bellamy and we used a 4-3-3 it worked excellently. Rafa really knows his tactics and he may get it wrong at times but no risks = no rewards.
Logged