Liverpool FC Forum

[account deleted by request]

I was mentioning "Hyppia, Hamann, Riise, Finan," etc as players that Xabi probably got along with, not that they left for fame and fortune maguskwt. i.e. relating to what Alonso was quoted as saying after he left.

[Sabre]

Do you really think Xabi would of changed his mind if we won the title and turned down madrid ? It seemed to me he made his mind up way before the end of the season .

I don't think so.

[maguskwt]

Do you really think Xabi would of changed his mind if we won the title and turned down madrid ? It seemed to me he made his mind up way before the end of the season .

I don't think so.

which part Sabes? First sentence or second sentence? 

[killerp]

At least there is one great player who will not walk away, I'll let you blokes work out who that is!

[Owzat]

Unfortunately this is what happens when you rely on foreign players... eventually a lot of them want to go home/ to a country with a more familiar culture or try their luck in another foreign league.  Garcia, Alonso, Arbeloa and now perhaps Mascherano all probably belong to this category.  Sometimes you can't really blame them and if Mascherano's reported social circumstances are correct then I certainly don't hold it against him.

We're not the only ones affected.  Arsenal lost Anelka, Overmars, Petit, Henry and Vieira while they were at their peaks.  United lost Ronaldo and Chelsea lost Robben.  I'm sure there are countless others.

What can you do about it?  Well winning trophies would help keep these players around longer I feel, but isn't always possible.  Building a team with a strong British core is another possibility, but again it's difficult and expensive to do.  You might also have to accept players of less quality.  Basically it's something we will just have to learn to accept in modern football unfortunately.

Nail on the head.

I just wish we had more finincial clout. I can't help but feel if we were bringing in more quality on par with Masch, Stevie and Torres then these players wouldn't be so quick to want to leave.

As happy as he makes the fans I can see Torres eventually wanting to leave too.

You can't build a team with a "strong british core" for several reasons, some demonstrated on Saturday :

- there are only a handful of top players in England, of whom some of the better ones play for teams who wouldn't sell to us

- those English players not at top clubs are not at top clubs for a reason, eg Johnson.

- the quality of the rest of britain is also going to fall into one of the two above categories, not good enough for a top club or not likely to be sold to us.


So what can we do? Buy british for the sake of it like the leprechaun at villa? So much for Ashley Young being worth £30m, he can't even get into a poor England side or the even poorer second string playing last weekend. We could buy emule, Milner, Warnock or other players (back in some cases), but we'd pay over the odds. Yes, it is true that the ultimate goal of foreigners may well be the league of their homeland or in Spain, but the reason we might lose foreigners is more to do with what we're not doing.

Alonso didn't pine for Spain after six months here, he was here FIVE SEASONS. Torres hasn't hinted at moving abroad despite interest and he's in his third season. Our problem is a manager who is not going to win the league under the current situation, regardless whether you see him as a waster of money or not having enough. We can't expect top players to come to a big club and go through a long spell without success without considering their future. The difference between players like Torres, Alonso and Mascherano, and players like Gerrard, Fowler and Owen is their grounding. Ok plenty are p'd off with Owen, but the bottom line is he had more affinity towards the club than some foreigner who may well have been brought up supporting Sao Paolo, Boca Juniors, Real Madrid or Juventus.

As with Houllier, I believe Rafa has passed the point at which he could win the league and is now struggling to hold together what he has been trying to strengthen. Houllier went into a pattern of absurd purchasing which Rafa quickly moved on, I fear Rafa is trying to buy big without having the budget and the squad that he should have established by now, the back-up to the best XI, is not there. It's not that he's had only one or two seasons with which to explain away why our squad is thin, he had a lot longer but chopped and changed. His "spend big" policy is also in danger of lumbering us with expensive flops and looking at cut price clearances to get shot of - Dossena, Keane and Babel to name three big shots at buys (even if we didn't lose bigtime on Keane, I've yet to see evidence convinces me one way or the other)

It won't be long before Torres tires of winning nothing, the suitors for his signature won't go away in a hurry. I don't see Mascherano's departure as a big loss, more a big chance to get in more money than he's worth, but with Rafa in charge who is to say he won't sign another Keane, Dossena or Babel...............................

[Benny The Noon]

two points - 1 . Owen affinity has always been to owen and nothing else , has always only cared for himself and not the club he is playing for . 2 . Please explain the johnson comment not at a big club etc ? Are you trying to say he isnt good enough to be at a top club and thats why he was at portsmouth ?

[Owzat]

two points - 1 . Owen affinity has always been to owen and nothing else , has always only cared for himself and not the club he is playing for . 2 . Please explain the johnson comment not at a big club etc ? Are you trying to say he isnt good enough to be at a top club and thats why he was at portsmouth ?

Maybe the fact with Owen was loyalty and affinity for the club can only go so far without the success to back it up. If he wins the league with the mancs then he'll have achieved what he didn't with us and may well not have done or do if he were still here.

re Johnson, yes I do have some doubts that he is as world class as some Liverpool fans seem to think he is. I doubt the biggest spenders were put off by the fee which to them was about par for their spending. It's not as if the mancs have a world class RB and I bet they'd have landed him if they wanted him. They probably saw the weaknesses he has, took into account the fee and draw the conclusion maybe Rafa should have done given our finances are generally tighter than their's so they could afford to spend £17.5m on a RB whereas we couldn't.