I don't get what was so wrong with zonal marking. I mean we're a pretty short club at the back bar Hyppia a few years ago, and Soto. If you look at most of the goals we've conceded recently I'd be willing to say most of them came through one of the back 4 being defeated via the aerial route, and in open play man to man is what they resorted to.
The zonal marking actually worked pretty well, far better than man to man so far.
Rafa's system works against nearly every side. It's a smother and barry type thing. No matter who we played, we were always in the game because we held possession and created chances.
Further more, for all the negative football Rafa played, we actually lead the league in scoring by a fair margin in 08/09, and we were only 6 goals behind Tottenham who don't own nearly the same label as us last year.
You're right, there is no magical system that ensures we will win. But if you look at Rafa in the CL, when he had ages to prepare a side, there probably isn't a stadium you could name that we didn't win in. This is the system that has won at the San Siro, Bernabeu, Nou Camp, Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford etc. even look vs other managers. He's beaten probably 80% of the top managers in the world. Wenger is the only one he really has had difficulty with domestically.
I'll just ask you this. Why would he sell someone if he knew he wouldn't have the money to re-invest? I mean the squad was thin enough as it was because he HAD to focus on the XI, but he couldn't afford(both fiscally and tactically) to get rid of somebody that isn't perfect for the role, because we'd be getting someone subpar back in because of the obvious constraints.
His time hadn't come. Look at Valencia, he won the league, had a shocker domestically(18 points under the winners) only to win the league again. It was a blip, a big one but it was something we saw before and he bounced back. He was sacked because they(as in Sky) wanted an Englishman and now had an excuse to hire a media friendly one.
Rafa football was never becoming sour. Sour is what Hicks is right now where he is seemingly just holding on to the club to spite us. With cash investment Rafa would have absolutely won the league at least once. When he got cash he delivered a Champions league final, followed by record setting points and a quarter final in the same year(giving Grant a run for his money, nearly taking Chelsea out after a stinker at home and going up 2-0 at halftime sans Gerrard.
What we have now is a man that has a boner for Sir Alex, is uncomfortable defending our players(unless the fans exaggerate according to him), believes our best CB is a backup LB and 30(he's 25) thinks Northhampton and West are a formidable side even at Anfield and has said if we beat Northmapton people would have looked back at the positives at Old Trafford, a game which we lost and were lucky to be in.
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