Only Rafa and players can save us
The heading of this thread seems to be a statement of the blindingly obvious but it's clearly not obvious to many of the people who post on this board. What it means is that the time for post mortems and apportionment of blame should be left to the end of the season and the focus should be on what we can do now to avoid relegation not endlessly discussing the past. This is not an attempt to clear Ashley from blame only a statement of fact: whatever his past sins of under-investment, Ashley can't buy any players between now and the end of the season so only Rafa and our current squad can save us.
Another obvious point: to avoid relegation we need to win matches which means scoring goals which means attacking, and putting attacking players on the pitch is not enough if they are used in a defensive role. I know the following will be interpreted as yet another dig at Rafa but these points seem obvious to me:
Don't wait until we're getting beat before playing attacking football
Don't try to defend a 1-0 lead for the rest of the game
If a system isn't working, don't wait until the 80th minute to change it
Don't play a lone striker and don't play Joselu at all. Granted we should have acquired a fit striker in January, for which I don't blame Rafa, but we are where we are. If Gayle isn't fit play Ritchie, or Shelvey if fit, or even Diame or Perez as a striker but not Joselu. He freezes when he nears the goal.
I expect yet another torrent of posts saying it's all Ashley's fault for years of under-investment but the point I'm trying to make is that this diagnosis doesn't help with the immediate problem of avoiding relegation. The existing squad has to be motivated to go out and at least try to win games. What would be unforgivable would be to go down without giving it a go.
