nice post. agree with a lot of things that you said. our board definitely has gone a little overboard in its signing of "youth players" rather even TRY to promote one or 2. DDR would definitely have made us an PL winner, (i have big reservations about gustavo) and you have to wonder if buying mvg for 8mil and stuffing the midfield (we already had rambo, essien, mikel, lamps) was a wise decision. but i have to differ with you on one thing. the rooney signing. i feel its a brilliant move by the club. if you compare the players of our club with bayern's , i feel at this moment they beat us in a player to player comparision for almost every player, except for probably mata, hazard and arguably cech. they definitely have a better defence and defenders. they probably have the best pivot partnership in the world, and a trio of ribery-kroos/muller-robben would be equal to or better than MAZACAR. so my point is we DO need an X-factor. someone who can change the match on its head in a bloody moment. some1 DD-ish and rooney does fit the bill. i seriously doubt if lukaku-ba-torres would be a match winner in a semi-final against bayern/barca/real. i feel the problem here is not rooney but torres (everything bad comes down to that guy). the torres has signing screwed us at so many different levels that its hard to explain. the fans are scared of any big-money striker signing and we cringe even at the mention of it. ps - dont insult mandzukic by comparing the guy to torres. he had 33 starts + 6 sub appearances for his 21 goals compared to torres who had 51 starts + 13 sub appearances for his 22 goals.