elmo
Can never have too many Eevees
I absolutely do rate RVP's first season with us, literally on the last page I said it was 'one of the four or five great individual seasons for us in the PL years'. It doesn't change the fact that I believe we'd have been better off buying in another position. When we were going into that transfer window absolutely nobody was saying that we needed to buy a striker. Hell, we scored four times in the game that cost us the title.
Hernandez barely played in the last two months of the season, in no way was he what cost us the title. So answer me this, why, after seven consecutive seasons of getting more than 80 points (and following on directly from one where we got 89) would we suddenly drop below that figure? People have bought so hard into this glorious legend of RVP riding in on a white horse and saving us from mediocrity, but fundamentally we barely improved after he signed. And, not unimportantly, we got a lot worse soon after.
I may as well literally say it, seeing as even hinting in this direction draws intense ire: signing Robin Van Persie was a mistake.