Like I said I'm a fan of levy, but if you guys believe that better buys than saha and nelson couldn't have earned us an extra point over half a season then its really pointless discussing it from this point onwards.
And yes despite our 11 point lead we needed those reinforcements, hense saga and nelson both playing a decent amount of games.
No we didn't, the players we had were more than capable of avoiding relegation form from the turn of the year until the season ended. If you believe that anything other than Redknapp taking his eye off the day-to-day management of the team, tactics, team selection, fitness assessments, opposition assessments, individual coaching assignments etc because he saw the chance of becoming England manager and had his head turned massively and was distracted by the constant spotlight and press speculation then its really pointless discussing it from this point onwards.
Here's our league results from 11/12:
22 August 2011 Manchester United A 3–0
28 August 2011 Emirates Marketing Project H 1–5
10 September 2011 Wolverhampton A 0–2
18 September 2011 Liverpool H 4–0
24 September 2011 Wigan Athletic A 1–2
2 October 2011 Arsenal H 2–1
16 October 2011 Saudi Sportswashing Machine A 2–2
23 October 2011 Blackburn Rovers A 1–2
30 October 2011 Queens Park Rangers H 3–1
6 November 2011 Fulham A 1–3
21 November 2011 Aston Villa H 2–0
26 November 2011 West Bromwich Albion A 1–3
3 December 2011 Bolton Wanderers H 3–0
11 December 2011 Stoke City A 2–1
18 December 2011 Sunderland H 1–0
22 December 2011 Chelsea H 1–1
27 December 2011 Norwich City A 0–2
31 December 2011 Swansea City A 1–1
3 January 2012 West Bromwich Albion H 1–0
11 January 2012 Everton H 2–0
14 January 2012 Wolverhampton H 1–1
22 January 2012 Emirates Marketing Project A 3–2
31 January 2012 Wigan Athletic H 3–1
6 February 2012 Liverpool A 0–0
........................Fabio Capello quits as England boss 8/2/12........................
11 February 2012 Saudi Sportswashing Machine H 5–0
25 February 2012 Arsenal A 5–2
4 March 2012 Manchester United H 1–3
10 March 2012 Everton A 1–0
21 March 2012 Stoke City H 1–1
24 March 2012 Chelsea A 0–0
1 April 2012 Swansea City H 3–1
7 April 2012 Sunderland A 0–0
9 April 2012 Norwich City H 1–2
21 April 2012 Queens Park Rangers A 1–0
29 April 2012 Blackburn Rovers H 2–0
..........................Roy Hodgson appointed England manager 1/5/12 (the reality is that Redknapp would have known he'd have been unsuccessful before this date - probably pre-dating Blackburn game).........
2 May 2012 Bolton Wanderers A 1–4
6 May 2012 Aston Villa A 1–1
13 May 2012 Fulham H 2–0
So it's not a coincidence that our form turns to total **** between Redknapp being installed favourite for the England job and between Redknapp finding out he has to concentrate on Spurs again.
Also, I have to point out that not only were the players more than good enough not to be so bloody useless inbetween these times, but they WERE GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FOOTBALL - WE FINISHED 4TH - Who'd have known that the ridiculous curse of spurs would mean we must be the only club in the history of the universe to finish in a CL qualifying position only to have the worst Chelsea team assembled under Abramovich somehow ridiculously fluke their way through a double tie with Barcelona where Chelsea probably scored 3 goals with their only 3 attacks across both legs, whereas Barca failed to score more than 3 goals despite having 100 shots and hitting the post/bar abotu 5 times across both legs, not to mention the ridiculous final that Chelsea somehow fluked a draw out of despite scoring with their one attack all game and Bayern only scoring one goal from about 50 million chances.
NO, but BLAME IT ALL ON LEVY, It's ALL LEVY'S FAULT, IF ONLY HE'D GIVEN REDKNAPP A MANAGER ONLY JUST CLEARED OF TAX EVASION AND WHO MADE IT CLEAR HE'D BUGGER OFF TO MANAGE ENGLAND £40M TO SPEND ON PLAYERS IT WOULD ALL BE ALRIGHT, LEVY IS THE DEVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL