Liverpool FC Forum

[stmichael]

I don't know about you guys, but I find myself getting increasingly frustrated with the various dealings in the transfer market. Below is an analysis of how I believe we fare with our main protagonists at home and abroad...

I'm not going to dwell on Chelsea because they operate in a different transfer market to everyone else on the planet ... the ONLY saving grace is that there are still SOME clubs out there who are not forced to sell their star players when Roman takes out his cheque book...LFC anyone???

But look at Manu U ... for a long time they relied on their established home grown side of Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, the Neville sisters, etc... with Roy Keane at the helm. This has allowed them to dip into the transfer market with bucket loads of cash when they have wanted to buy players like Ronaldo (16 mill), Ferdinand (30 mill) and now Rooney (25 mill). Not in a million years can we come anywhere near competing with Man U at the moment. Not only that, but when they need/have to sell then they get good market value for their main assets... 25 mill for their star home-grown player sounds like good business to me. Admittedly, Stevie G's sale to Chelsea would have netted us a reported 30 mill, but as well all know, it would have ripped the heart out of our side and set us back another few years at least. But what of our 'other' world-class asset? Before I continue, anyone who has read any of my previous posts will know that I was, and will continue to be, a huge Michael Owen Fan. One of the few points that I disagree with Mikey on is that we did well to get 8 mill + a utility player for him. (as Mikey cost us nothing). In my opinion this has been a HUGE loss to LFC and the transfer fee is nothing short of a joke. Yes I know that there was only a year left on his contract, but that is a failure that only Gerard Houllier and Rick Parry can answer to. The cold hard fact is that 8 mill falls way short of what is needed to adequately replace Michael Owen, The one saving grace is that the stage appears to be set for Mikey to do a 'Rushie' when the milk turns sour at Real Madrid.

Talking of Real Madrid, they really do have a great set-up, don't they? A team loaded to the hilt with galaticos, with a ton of quality fringe players consisting of young, talented hopefuls and utlility players who would be regular first-teamers at most other clubs...In my opinion, their only major weakness is a continually changing boardroom that offers nothing in the way of continuity or consistency. They need a manager who can keep their stars in line (eg: Beckham) and is given a reasonable chance to perform without the threat of the sack when things get a little shakey. Maybe Jose Camacho is the man? ... time will tell! ... Saying all this though, I personally feel angry about the way they do business in the transfer market amidst many rumours of players being 'tapped-up' over the years. Although we may never know the truth, it would come as no great surprise to me to hear that tony stephens (i'm using lower case here out of a complete lack of respect for the man and the agency he works for) and Real Madrid have been in talks for some time now.

Returning to the home front, you can't help feeling that whatever Arsene Wenger touches turns to gold ... I have nothing but respect for the man and what he has acheived with the limited budgets at his disposal. The value of his side must be huge at the moment and it must surely only be a matter of time before they start performing in Europe. One final point about Arsene Wenger ... while many of his contempories are alleged to have shady transfer dealings, Wenger seems to conduct himself with a little more dignity don't you think?

So what about us then? While I personally think that Rafa is the man for the job and he has my full backing, there is no doubt that he has a big task on his hands. When Houllier arrived we witnessed an influx of players (mainly French) from France ... now Rafa is doing the same, but with Spanish players. Now La Liga is head and shoulders above Le Championnat, but we all have our fingers crossed that the Spanish Armada can learn to successfully navigate the waters of the Premiership. Although I was glad to see Heskey go when he did, I can't help thinking (in hindsight) that he would have been good for one more years service - as a foil to either Cisse or Baros. The latter 2 seem to have very little understanding between them at the moment and Cisse in particular looks like he's going to need half a season at least to acclimatise to the Premiership game. Besides that, Rafa has to make do with a squad that still has a lot of dead wood that continues to sap extortionate wages that would be better spent on players that deserve to play for our great club.

Although the club is in a major period of transition, the future looks very bright. The new stadium (as long as 2 Jags Prescott doesn't scupper our plans) will greatly increase gate receipts and as long as Rafa can consistently keep us in the Champions League for the next few seasons then we'll have the kind of budgets that might allow US to start finally buying some big ticket players. In Rafa we have a winner and a top-draw manager. If anyone can bring number 19 to our club, then he can ... but he needs time. Whereas Houllier was prepared to wait 5 years (6 at last count...) Rafa wants success NOW. You show me a winner that is happy to wait for success? If it takes him time to achieve it then so be it, but you can bet your house on Rafa hurting like hell in the meantime.

VIVA BENITEZ!!!

[antz]

Good post, Do you work ?

[106-1093504160]

stmike, ever thought of novel writing

[stmichael]

Good post, Do you work ?

why how dare you?

i'm starting a new job in two weeks time. at the moment i'm working nights part time so i'm constantly on here during the day. 

i presume you ask due to the length of my post.

[106-1093504160]

stmike, ever thought of novel writing

read this st mike

[Homebooby]

hi guys....haven't posted in a long while, but I am still around

[quote]Admittedly, Stevie G's sale to Chelsea would have netted us a reported 30 mill, but as well all know, it would have ripped the heart out of our side and set us back another few years at least.

that's exactly what has happened to utd...that whole debacle was the pinnacle of their demise...(schmichael leaving and stam being thrown out being the starting point.)

well avoided if you ask me

[laza]

Keep it up St Mick
Always a good read

[106-1093504160]

laza - moes - NOW!!

[ivor_the_injun]

It's a tricky question really - on the one hand, there is the concern that we can't compete with Chelsea and Man U when top players come up. On the other hand, look at signings like Baros for £3.4m against Drogba for £26m, then Hyypia for £3m compared to Ferdinand for £28m. I'd be surprised if Drogba scored 5 times more goals than Baros this season, for example. Similarly, I also expect Man U to leak more goals than LFC this season, which puts the Ferdinand/Hyypia comparison under the microscope.

At the end of the day, a club with £50m to spend on players that splash out £26m on a quality striker is spending roughly the same proportion of their funds as a club with a £25m transfer budget that spend £14m on a quality striker. It's all about finding the good players and trying to make them come to your club within the constraints of your budget. We've had very, very mixed results with this in recent years, whereas Arsenal have been the best market-traders in Europe for the last 5 or 6 years. If Chelsea hadn't gone in for Drogba, but Arsenal had, I reckon they'd have got him for something closer to £15m.

Another big, big factor is the scouting and academy systems that clubs have in place. Again, Arsenal have done some phenomenal work in bringing in kids from Europe, whereas we've lagged far behind in trying to continually chase players that are "the next __". Hopefully the emergence of Warnock is indicative of things to come in terms of Benitez's reign.

[Redrider]

stmick', A sensible appraisal of our current dilema, we need to climb back into the 'Big Time' currently we are a fringe club scrambling to hold onto our 'Star Status'. We can only pull ourselves up by improving the standard of our players, raising our game and Winning. In your post you may have hit on a reason why we will not compete in the Transfer Market and miss our target, quote-

'Although the club is in a major period of transition, the future looks very bright. The new stadium (as long as 2 Jags Prescott doesn't scupper our plans) will greatly increase gate receipts'

The new Stadium plans may indeed be a hinderence to our future progress, by diverting much needed funding away from team re-building. Steve Morgan has highligted this in his latest offer to re-finance the club. We need to pay attenion here and be sure that we doing the right thing. I am not sure that the current Board are on top of their game !

[A.B.]

I will disagree with your post. It has no logic.

Real Madrid-top word class players which have costed alot of money but performed poorly in the past three years

You have to realize that the price tag of a player doesn't mean anything anymore. Rafa is a true business man, he will not spend tons of millions on single player, that is bad business. He can find just as good talent for a low cost as Chelsea can with their riches.

This has been proven on many occasions. Examples: Valencia,Porto

Those two squads were able to create players who were not even worth over  5 million into stars.Talent is not bought, remember that.

Manchester United can buy a player for a 100,000,000 million but is that good business, no it is not and will that prove that the player is actually worth that much as far as talent goes, no it will not.

Rafa can spot talent in Spain because he has been there. The players with huge talents are cheaper there.

[LFC #1]

Now La Liga is head and shoulders above Le Championnat, but we all have our fingers crossed that the Spanish Armada can learn to successfully navigate the waters of the Premiership.

Hopefully our Spanish signings will be as successful as the few that have come here already like Reyes, Fabregas and Mendieta.
PerhapsSspanish players are suited to the premiership, cos as we have seen with many players from Serie A, they just couldn't cut it here (Crespo and Veron for example).

as you say St Mick VIVA BENITEZ!

[sinema]

St. Michael,  excellent post mate which provoked some well
considered replies.  There is hope for this forum at last.

A.B.  No offence but you're out of your depth.

[kindaconfuzed]

St Mick

Mick how long is your post then

Great posting and I don't disagree with any of it, but when I hear fans talk about football and all the emotion that goes with it its easy to forget its a business (not suggesting you Mick).

When you look at Man U they caught on to the marketing aspect well before any of the other clubs and this has generated loads of income for them.  And didn;t the marketing director (forgot name) move over to Chelsea to help with their marketing.

To me there seems to be a lack of marketing at Liverpool and the potential is huge but it would have been more beneficial when we were wining.

[A.B.]

St. Michael,  excellent post mate which provoked some well
considered replies.  There is hope for this forum at last.

A.B.  No offence but you're out of your depth.

Are you a business man?

Its quite simple really. If you had 25 million pounds at you disposal, would you use that money to buy 5 talented players who are great footballers or buy just one striker? this is an example

Any business man would go with five players. With those five players he can improve the squad instead of buying just one striker. That striker is good but is the rest of the squad is the same? Probably not.

Rafa is a genius when it comes to the transfer market. There is plenty of great talent in Spain and not only that but they are cheaper than in England and in the rest of the world. He brought 4 great Spaniards who are great footballers for a low price, that is good business.

Will Manchester United have better offence because they have Rooney? Probably but what about the rest of their squad, buying one player doesn't improve the squad as a whole.