in order to play the formation we do properly,ie 1 up top we need attacking fullbacks and johnson is one of the best there is,certainly in the prem.
you need to spend big to bring in quality.Arbeloa needed replacing and players of johnson's caliber don't come around every transfer window.We also needed to replace alonso,which as it stands we haven't,even after spending 20mil on aqualani.
The problem is even after last season where we were flying we were still short and needed to build,instead we lost 3 players and had just money enough to replace them,nothing more.
as things stand atm and i am all for giving aqualani more time it looks like it would have been better to not bring him in at all and use pacheco in the hole and let him develop and spent the aqua money on a quality striker.