Liverpool FC Forum

[Sabre]

Yet when someone asks how much you spent on your house, you don't add all the houses you've ever bought together, do you?

If you own a £220,000 house, you don't say £470,000 because you add the £90,000 starter home and the £160,000 step up. That would be moronic.

Yes it would.

You simply cannot add Rafa having spent £5.8m on Sissoko to the £18m on Mascherano, because the two were never part of the same set-up; one was bought and sold for a profit, and as with a house, the money reinvested in a step-up. If Sissoko isn't bought and then sold, Mascherano probably doesn't arrive.

Is that really too tough to grasp?

No it isn't.

This thread is interesting because it shows at the thread starter how you can pick some numbers and defend those as something good. You can even get a bit arrogant and condescending like Tomkins in those questions.

Similarly someone could insist and defend another set of numbers is the right one to use. He might even get to the point of being condescending.

I just preffer not focusing on numbers and watch how many top class players surrounded Gerrard 5 years ago, and how many now. Remembering what were the expectations in 2005 and what are the expectations now.

Trying to bring always the positive facts as Tomkins does won't give the criticism needed to improve. But bringing always a negative view on Rafa's reign as people like Jamie do, won't allow you to analyse the situation with perspective neither. If you look always the negative you might even reach to the point of thinking that with anyone else, things would be better done.

For me there have been progress. For me we could have spent our money better. And also much worse. For me it's obvious we're competing against powerful economies like Chelsea's and Man U's, and for me it's obvious now the people's expectations are the league. Progress there is. Fast enough? absolutely debatable.

[bigmick]

Just to reiterate, I think it will be a massive disaster for the club in the long term, but I think Rafa will very soon sign a new contract.

It's true the bit of reiterating, because it's more than twice I've read something similar from you.

A "massive disaster" sounds pretty bad, so I would like you to explain a bit how is that. That is, do you see decay? do you see that under Rafa we'd go to massive disaster? how would be that disaster?

I'd like to know what massive disaster means, because I certainly don't see the club in a worse football position now than when Rafa came. So nothing in my eyes leads to a massive disaster when it comes to football.

That is, fair enough to read that sentence, but some explanation would be appreciated. I'm not very good at predicting future.

This may derail the thread so I'll keep it brief.

I thnk it'll be a disaster to give rafa a new contract because:

a) I don't think he is capable of winning the Premier League, regardless of how much money you give him. Because of these reasons:
     I don't think his mentality in terms of how defensive he is and how much stock he places on avoidance of defeat above all else is conjusive to winning the league.
     I don't think he can resist styling, over-complication, adjustments, tinkering, showing everyone how clever he is etc. At the heart of his philosophy IMHO he feels he is the general, expertly interchanging his troops to counter each and every manager he locks horns with. Football is simpler than that IMHO, and managers aren't the stars in that respect, players are. He'll never let it go, and at various stages of each and every season he is in charge we will get ridiculous selections which cost us points.
     I don't think he is a good enough man manager to extract that extra 5% from players, which is needed on wet and Wednesday night in Wigan, when we're wan-nil down    I think he is a methodical, meticulous manager who is incapable of inspirational man management, and I think it holds us back.


So, I don't think he will ever win the Premiership (regardless of who he is incharge of as it happens). So why is that a disaster?

Well, given two more years he will have spunked a fair bit more money on players that the next new manager whoever he is will have to sift through. He will have probably seen us fall at least one title behind the Mancs. He will have been in charge and have seen off the prime years of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carraghers career.

Once Gerrard in particular declines, as the tide of his excellence recedes we will see IMHo the stark reality of the rubbish which is left behind on the beach. God only knows where we'd be now if Gerrard hadn't been here when the manager arrived. It doesn't bare thinking about because he certainly wouldn't have bought him, that's for certain.

There is also IMHO the possibility that we will see rumblings of discontent from some players in the Summer.

Decay? yes I think so. I think advising players not to sign a new contract until the manager has sorted his own deal out will breed discontent. The selling of Keane for any number of reasons which aren't known, but none of which were beneficial to the football team will breed discontent. The way we conducted ourselves once we looked around and realised we are top of the league will cause discontent.

In my opinion, the manager is a busted flush. He has in my eyes been exposed as being out of his depth, and in two years time it's anybodies guess where we'll be with him at the helm. Unless we can win the Champions League this season, it's already three seasons without a trophy and counting.

Two more years of Rafa and we might just find ourselves falling into the sleeping giant category.

[Sabre]

If the thread is derailed, it's my fault because I asked. 

If you think all that I'm not surprised you think it will be a disaster. But I'll comment some of your points, in another Rafa thread. Let's keep this one about the spending myths (thank you for the explanation btw).

[tubby]

BigMick you dont paint a pretty picture. But it saddens me to admit it you are right.

[Judge]

Fair point s@int, so the Net spend is bearing in mind his sales of Houllier's players.

He didnt get much for them though did he?

Baros went for only about £3M, Hamman free?, Cisse peanuts, Smicer free, Dudek peanuts, Traore £2m (thank feck),
Henchoz nowt, Kewell nowt, Finnan £1M
- so, taking into account what you say, which is fair enough - we didnt get much for his players.
So again, I think Net spend is a fiar yardstick to measure Rafa's spending.
(The figures I stated are off the top of me head, so could be well wrong)

cisse for peanuts!!

was that KP or Planters?

[tubby]

Fair point s@int, so the Net spend is bearing in mind his sales of Houllier's players.

He didnt get much for them though did he?

Baros went for only about £3M, Hamman free?, Cisse peanuts, Smicer free, Dudek peanuts, Traore £2m (thank feck),
Henchoz nowt, Kewell nowt, Finnan £1M
- so, taking into account what you say, which is fair enough - we didnt get much for his players.
So again, I think Net spend is a fiar yardstick to measure Rafa's spending.
(The figures I stated are off the top of me head, so could be well wrong)

cisse for peanuts!!

was that KP or Planters?

Nobbys.

[Owzat]

The most expensive squads (excluding players out on long-term loan) are as follows:

Chelsea £207m
Manchester United £206m*
Spurs £188m
Manchester City £140m
Liverpool £127m

(*£226m if Carlos Tevez's deal made permanent, given that it is initially a unique two-year £10m agreement, and very different from 99.9 of transfer deals. Effectively United are winning games with a £30m player.)

Happily my figures are not disimilar, although they were never likely to be exactly the same as it depends on your sources for the values - and I haven't updated it fully for a while

Squad values according to Owzat (unedited)

£223m Chelsea
£178m Man Utd*
£162m Tottenham**
£142m Man City
£127m Liverpool

*doesn't include a value for Tevez
** doesn't include a value for Keane for starters (not updated yet)

So I more or less concur with Tomkins, just need to check the squads tally/are up to date. Then I can do that cost of the comparitive XIs once I've checked the five squads - although you could choose who to include to avoid youth players like Giggs, Scholes, Carra, Gerrard and Terry

[Owzat]

The most expensive squads (excluding players out on long-term loan) are as follows:

Chelsea £207m
Manchester United £206m*
Spurs £188m
Manchester City £140m
Liverpool £127m

(*£226m if Carlos Tevez's deal made permanent, given that it is initially a unique two-year £10m agreement, and very different from 99.9 of transfer deals. Effectively United are winning games with a £30m player.)

Happily my figures are not disimilar, although they were never likely to be exactly the same as it depends on your sources for the values - and I haven't updated it fully for a while

Squad values according to Owzat (unedited)

£223m Chelsea
£178m Man Utd*
£162m Tottenham**
£142m Man City
£127m Liverpool

*doesn't include a value for Tevez
** doesn't include a value for Keane for starters (not updated yet)

So I more or less concur with Tomkins, just need to check the squads tally/are up to date. Then I can do that cost of the comparitive XIs once I've checked the five squads - although you could choose who to include to avoid youth players like Giggs, Scholes, Carra, Gerrard and Terry

Updated Squad values according to Owzat

£232m Chelsea
£194m Man Utd
£176m Tottenham
£142m Man City
£132m Liverpool

Chelsea : I have Shevchenko down as belonging to Chelsea, this isn't confirmed by wikipedia as some sources claim it is a loan (SS, s*n) and others don't see it that way. Also depends what figure you believe was paid for Cashley

Man Utd : I gather the Tevez fee is made up of loan installments to be taken off the £30m fee reported, whether to add that or not is debatable - especially given he's on loan still and they may not even sign him, if we're going to make loans have values then should we take off loaned out players? Talk about selective. I've now added the two Serbian kids at reported £16.3m combined. Again, you don't know if that is initial, with add-ons etc

Tottenham : according to wikipedia, Keane was bought back for £12m with it rising to £19m including add-ons. I know Dos Santos also had about £4m in add-ons which is about £11m of the difference between my figure and Tomkins.

LIVERPOOL : has Tomkins taken Pennant off our squad? That is one plausible explanation for the difference, but that would contradict his own rules surely?


Any which way, whether my figures match Tomkins' exactly or not, the list puts Liverpool where a lot of people want them to be - below others for ready made excuses. What it doesn't do is explain how sides that are below us in spending are right up with us in the league not proportionate points behind, and how Arsenal have finished above us all too often.

[Sabre]

Numbers, when back Rafa are excuses, and when say something negative about Rafa are repeated as universal proof of Rafa's incompetence.

Anyhow, in how much we spend, it must not be forgotten the Spanish factor. Is Alonso with his taxation any worse than Carrick?
Was a keeper better than any English keeper  expensive? what about Riera, is one of the best five choices for the position expensive? Was Arbeloa cheaper than a English RB of similar level?

Would be an O'neill as persuasive to bring this cheap quality or would he get "Quien coño eres" as an answer?



Numbers.

[bigmick]

Well they may be numbers Sabre, but when you constantly get told by aplogists that Rafa hasn't been able to shop for the same players, hasn't been able to spend as much, has had to sell to buy and the like, the numbers are the factual way of proving such statements to be b0ll0cks. The point isn't surely what the squad is "worth", that's not the title of the thread. It's how much have we spent. The facts are there for people to see. Once you've established and accepted those, then you move onto whether or not we've got value for money. In many cases we haven't. The issue though isn't even about individual players and whether they have been value, we're not used car salesmen here trying to turn players over at a profit. The issue is, it's the managers job to spend the money appropriately and build a squad which is capable of winning the league.

Rafa has been here five seasons and we've only got one striker worthy of the name. One may also be only a number, but after five seasons I think it ought to be two, or three, or even four. We only have one left midfielder, one right full back, arguably no right midfielder. It's nothing more or less than a complete shambles.

[Sabre]

Ah, that latter criticism is fair.

In RM Rafa hasn't done his homework. It's true one good left mid in 5 years is a poor balance. It's true we're short about strikers, it's true aswell that we used to have men like Crouch or Keane but they weren't comfortable not playing everything.

Of course the are mistakes. But getting right the Goal position (I can't understand how Sunderland are doing well with that joke they have as keeper), the future of CB, the CM, and bring a world class striker for a price of a top class player are the good sides.

That is, I miss some credit to his achievements. Torres is just more than a striker that deserves the name, Riera is better than decent, Reina is a luxury, and Alonso and Mascha are top class midfielders. And because of this signings, saying we're in the same position than when Rafa came is utter bóllocks. It's bóllocks if you look it from distance, and it's bóllocks in a closer look.

[112-1077774096]

just wondering, if rafa gets to spend the same as jose did at chelsea, and we go on to win the league, will people say we bought the title and it had nothing to do with good management, just wondering

[loopyliverpool]

Well they may be numbers Sabre, but when you constantly get told by aplogists that Rafa hasn't been able to shop for the same players, hasn't been able to spend as much, has had to sell to buy and the like, the numbers are the factual way of proving such statements to be b0ll0cks. The point isn't surely what the squad is "worth", that's not the title of the thread. It's how much have we spent. The facts are there for people to see. Once you've established and accepted those, then you move onto whether or not we've got value for money. In many cases we haven't. The issue though isn't even about individual players and whether they have been value, we're not used car salesmen here trying to turn players over at a profit. The issue is, it's the managers job to spend the money appropriately and build a squad which is capable of winning the league.

Rafa has been here five seasons and we've only got one striker worthy of the name. One may also be only a number, but after five seasons I think it ought to be two, or three, or even four. We only have one left midfielder, one right full back, arguably no right midfielder. It's nothing more or less than a complete shambles.

Couldn't agree more but would add that the left side is less than decent also. Why has the team been left without a right back when Finnan was flogged, who although not a dazzling player was consistent, why is he playing Kuyt on the right side of midfield when he was bought as a striker, why did he flog Warnock who was an emerging player, why has he bought central midfielders when we don't need them and they are complete garbage, why did he flog Bellamy, why has Babel been so under used and has no confidence? ? A simple axiom for any manager might be: you buy a player who plays in a certain position and you play them there!

[Redman in wales]

just wondering, if rafa gets to spend the same as jose did at chelsea, and we go on to win the league, will people say we bought the title and it had nothing to do with good management, just wondering

I'm probably more anti than pro... but i'd say no... casue of the competition

Jose could buy the league because at the time, because no-one could match his spending power. just as an example, if he wanted someone like SWP, he could easily outbid anyone (we were sniffing around about £12m??) and Jose could just slap down £24m (double what he's worth), and no one could do anything about it.

That was buying the league.

Now, if we had a sugardaddy so to speak, and say David Villa became available, then Chelsea, Man City could both match our spend (as could utd I would guess)

So if we did have unlimited funds, it would just put us on an even playing field with the likes of chelsea, and not a step above (financially), like when Abramovich came on the scene

[LegBarnes]

EDIT