A couple of things you are missing. He needed to buy likes of Momo to build a strong squad as highlighted by Momo's strong performances when Didi was not playing. As for wide players, Rafa made numerous attempts to sign wingers, Simoa, Alves, Vicente, Silva, Malouda, Van De Vaart to name a few. When he was priced out of the market for them he settled for second option and therefore was forced to take a gamble on the likes of Pennant, Leto and Gonzalez. He signed Riera who was a reasonable success. As for fullbacks, I dont see any problem with signing Dossena especially since he was one of the best fullbacks in Italy. Unfortunately it did not work out for him here. Johnson was signed on the basis that he was very good going forward and that he would work well Kuyt. For a while they did work well before the wheels came off the team. Johnson cant be that bad as he is still in the team.