The two most frequent comments after the Swansea result are that the starting XI were all players from last year's Championship squad and that had we had a decent striker we would have won the game easily.
I think it's time to look at both critically. First, why weren't any of Rafa's purchases included in the starting XI: Lejeune, Merino, Murphy, Manquillo and Joselu? Did he think that the players he bought weren't good enough? Does he lack confidence in the players he bought? Or did he want to make a point to Ashley about the shortage of choices he had?
Second, if -as I've said many time before -we'd used the money spent on the players above to buy one or two quality players, particularly a good striker -we may have converted the chances we had and won this and several other games. We weren't forced to buy a £5m striker. If we hadn't bought Murphy, who's hardly a regular in the team- and Lejeune and Merino. we could have bought say a £20m striker. As I've said before, we should have bought quality not quantity. I know the argument about cover for injuries and competition for places but I think that part of the reason we buy so many squad players is Rafa's rotation policy. But there's no point in rotating a squad full of mediocrities. Some clubs stick to pretty much the same formation game after game. It would be interesting to compare their results with clubs that use the rotation policy.
I'm not an Ashley fan but even he must ask why a manager keeps asking for more players and then hardly uses them.
Another point: according to Jenas and a few other pundits, Newcastle is 'over-achieving.' Is it 'over-achieving' to fail to beat the bottom club at home and to lose at home to Bournemouth and Watford? If this is 'over-achieving' God help us if we under-achieve. Inco
