Rafa Deserves Next Season

After two years of blogging exile I have strongly felt the need to argue Rafa's case following our shock FA cup exit.

Rafa always faces a constant barrage of criticism regarding his rotation policy. This strategy had given great success at Valencia, by enabling his team to be the strongest physically towards the end of the season, and overtake teams who had opened up significant leads in the 1st half of the campaign. Sadly this approach only bears fruit if you are still in contention having rested some of your key players earlier in the season. It also requires your squad players to have sufficient ability to fill in and compete against the Premier Leagues also rans. Unfortunately we don't have the necessary strength and depth in the squad. As soon as Torres is rested we really struggle to score goals. Leave Agger out and we lack pace at the back (until Skrtel signed). Give Gerrard the day off and we have no drive from midfield.

Although it has been noticeable recently that Rafa has been playing his strongest spine. It could be argued that this spine is one of the best in world football. Reina, Carra, Agger, Gerrard, Masch and Torres would walk into most teams. Sadly the players round the edges have either been hopelessly off form (Riise), played out of position (Babel), suffered too many injuries (Kewell and Aurelio), or lack the necessary ability (Kuyt). Rafa is a workaholic and I'm sure is fully aware of what needs to be done. He has never been afraid to ruthlessly cast aside players who have not delivered, Bellamy and Josemi being good examples.

Rafa has also been toiling against a backdrop of instability and uncertainty created by a couple of Americans who are way out of their league in trying to run the club. Some people argue that it should not affect the players but there is no doubt that it has.

Rafa has achieved and contributed to some wonderful things during his tenure, two superb cup final comebacks, victories against the Spanish, Italian and English Champions, our highest Premiership points tally, a table topping reserve team full of a multitude of talented youngsters, a couple of Youth Cups and the signings of Torres, Reina, Agger and Mascherano (hopefully to be permanent soon).

I hope Rafa can be backed to sign some wide players and full backs in the summer. This, together with the emergence of one or two youngsters, may give the team the necessary creativity to compete consistently in the League at the highest level.

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