puyol made mistakes, but he also turned in heroic performances the likes of which we didn't really see from marquez. he scored or made the killer goals in BOTH clasicos, for example. plus he's the captain and the leadership he provides can make up for any mistakes he makes (and he doesn't tend to make them in big games, aside from the calderon where he and rafa both fucked up, he was a big game stalwart whereas rafa had those facepalm worthy moments in the first clasico and the first leg of the CL semi).
anyway, I'm not giving la masia a carte blanché to fuck up. if you read what I said, you'll see I said that la masia and new recruits get LEEWAY with me. as in, I am more tolerant of them and any mistakes they make as they are either new or home grown (that's not to say I like or ignore it). it's a bias towards players who come through our youth system which has no basis in logic, I freely admit that, but football's not about logic.
of course rafa has been offered an extension. he still has value as a sellable asset and if we let his contract run down we make nothing from him. conversely if he renews we can ship him out in the summer (or keep him, I'm really not fussed) and make a tidy sum.
