Liverpool FC Forum

[fivecups]

I thought I would list the 10 most expensive players in our squad in terms of transfer fee and compare them to Man Utd’s 10 most expensive players.

Please note that I gathered these figures purely as a fact finding mission and not with an anti or pro agenda.

It would be interesting to know peoples take on the figures which won’t be 100% accurate but close enough.

Liverpool

1. Fernando Torres – £25,000,000
2. Javier Mascherano – £18,600,000
3. Ryan Babel – £11,500,000
4. Xabi Alonso – £10,500,000
5. Dirk Kuyt – £9,000,000
6. Albert Riera – £8,000,000
7. Andrea Dossena – £7,000,000
8. Jermaine Pennant – £ 6,700,000
9. Martin Skrtel – £6,500,000
10. Pepe Reina – £6,000,000

Total = £108,800,000


Man Utd (excluding Carlos Tevez as he is on loan)

1. Dimitar Berbatov – £ 30,750,000
2. Rio Ferdinand – £ 29,100,000
3. Wayne Rooney – £27,600,000
4. Michael Carrick – £ 18,600,000
5. Anderson – £18,000,000
6. Owen Hargreaves – £17,000,000
7. Nani – £15,000,000
8. Cristiano Ronaldo – £ 12,240,000
9. Zoran Tosic – £8,000,000
10. Nemanja Vidic – £7,000,000

Total =£183,290,000



Difference: £74,490,000

CHL's figures again from March which I'll update at some point.

I echo his disclaimer.

[fivecups]

[quote="Flight"][/quote]
Update of Flights post, may need further verification. No actual money mentioned but it's something that's been raised in recent discussions.

EXISTING PLAYERS AT TOP FOUR CLUBS WHEN RAFA ARRIVED


ARSENAL (03-04 apps)

Clichy (22, 12 league)
Fabregas (3, cup only)


CHELSEA

Terry (51, 33 league)
J Cole (50, 35)
Lampard (58, 38)


MANCS

Ferdinand (27, 20)
O'Shea (49, 33)
Neville (42, 30)
Giggs (47, 33)
Scholes (40, 28)
Fletcher (35, 22)

LIVERPOOL

Carragher (29, 22)
Gerrard (47, 34)

[bigmick]

Update of Flights post, may need further verification. No actual money mentioned but it's something that's been raised in recent discussions.

EXISTING PLAYERS AT TOP FOUR CLUBS WHEN RAFA ARRIVED


ARSENAL

Almunia
Clichy
Eboue
Fabregas
Van Persie
Bendtner


CHELSEA

Cech
Carvalho
Terry
Ferreira
J Cole
Lampard
Drogba


MANCS

Ferdinand
O'Shea
Neville
Giggs
Scholes
Fletcher
Rooney


LIVERPOOL

Carragher
Gerrard

That's an interesting list of names mate. The first thing which strikes me about our list being quite so short is that it's a bit of a shame we didn't keep one or two as they would certainly improve our squad even today. Hyppia is a recent and most obvious example, and you could pick any of three strikers who were at the club when Rafa arrived.

The Arsenal list is interesting of course in that none of them were in the team when Rafa arrived. The season before Rafa came to Liverpool, Arsenal went the whole season unbeaten and won the league, none of these players figured really. I guess it shows the value in their case of such a good youth policy and in the case of players such as Van Persie it just goes to show what a good player spotter Wenger is.

Chelsea's list is interesting in that it is so innaccurate, I guess in order to make it look better. Ferreira was of course a Mourinho signing so if he was already at the club before Rafa arrived it was by a few days, ditto Drogba. Funnily enough, Drogba actually played against Rafa's Valencia for Marseilles in the UEFA Cup final before rafa joined Liverpool. Good player though he undoubtedly is, he can only be in one place at once.

The Mancs had a few players of course, products of their youth policy mainly. They were though still some way short of being a title challenging team, they finished fifteen points adrift of the title winners (Arsenal) in the season before Rafa arrived. In Rafa's first season, they finished third again and 18 points adrift of Chelsea, so the idea that they were on the cusp of greatness doesn't hold water. Funnily enough, the following season when they performed much better and got with 8 points or so, we were only one point behind them. Unfortunately as we know from there they kicked on and we didn't.

As always though, these lists are interesting for a bit of knockabout chat.

[fivecups]

Squad When Rafa Took Over

GKs (3) : Dudek, Kirkland, Bernadi

CBs (4) : Hyypia, Henchoz, Medjani, Whitbread

FBs (5) : Finnan, Warnock, Riise, Traore, Vignal

MF (11) : Gerrard, Hamann, Kewell, Smicer, Diao, Murphy, Potter, Le Tallec, Cheyrou, Diarra, Biscan

CFs (6) : Owen, Cisse, Pongolle, Mellor, Baros, Diouf

Another Owzat one.

[bigmick]

In that case I ammend my list of our players. You could have three of four strikers who were at the club at that time who would improve the squad of today.

[LFC2007]

Then without a source your pie in the sky statement is bollox really. Considering this thread has many posters who find statements from all over the web that do not correlate with one anothers about our 'net spend'. It would be appropriate to find out whether your source (and that is of course if you had one) is/was reliable about our wages, obviously not though.

'Passing fan' thats a bit rich coming from LFC2007

You clearly haven't understood my post, so i'll simplify.

If you think the argument that Chelsea's ability to spend more on wages than ourselves can only have put us at a disadvantage in the transfer market amounts to 'pie in the sky', you must be a complete f'ucking tool.

Cue the thought police.

[fivecups]

Good points Mick. I've taken out Drogba and Ferrero. I had a quick look at Arsenal and most of those were wrong as well so I edited them. If there are any more I'll update again.

Rooney's also wrong.

[bigmick]

Good points Mick. I've taken out Drogba and Ferrero. I had a quick look at Arsenal and most of those were wrong as well so I edited them. If there are any more I'll update again.

I wasn't criticising you BTW FC, I knew you'd just quoted it from elsewhere mate.

Sorry to be picky as well but Carvallho was another Mourinho signing as well mate. He brought the central defender with him from Porto so he needs to come out too.

[fivecups]

Good points Mick. I've taken out Drogba and Ferrero. I had a quick look at Arsenal and most of those were wrong as well so I edited them. If there are any more I'll update again.

I wasn't criticising you BTW FC, I knew you'd just quoted it from elsewhere mate.

Sorry to be picky as well but Carvallho was another Mourinho signing as well mate. He brought the central defender with him from Porto so he needs to come out too.

I'm not absolutely sure about Rooney either mate. I've got a feeling they signed him in the same Summer that Rafa arrived and he hadn't actually played. I'm certain on Carvallho though, he definately needs to come out.

Correct on both counts Mick!

[bigmick]

The point always is with these lists and situations though is we presuppose almost that Rafa absolutely HAD to change the whole squad bar Gerrard and Carragher, which I think isn't a fiar representation of the facts. Particularly when you consider that these squads were six seasons ago and many oif the players Rafa was left with featured very heavily for him in at least his first three seasons (Hyppia, Finnan, Riise, Hamman etc etc). Players such as Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher, O'Shea, Brown and the like slightly skew the list in that they are one club for life players which are rare in todays world.

Anyways like I say it's interesting knockabout stuff.

I think in the case of Petr Cech as well, he was a Ranieri signing but hadn't actually played for Chelsea before Rafa came. Not certain but I think much like Robben, he had to get used to the fact he was going to be playing under a different manager than he thought he was when he first signed. Once again much like the winger though, it didn't seem to bother him overly.

[LFC2007]

You said "50 million more per season" for Chelsea earlier LFC, that sounds a bit high. That would ten players on 100K per week extra than what we pay. It might be the case, but it sounds a tad high to me.

I still think it's something of a desperate measure of how a team should perform (not saying you brought it up in the first place) as you'd be doing the calculation before each match. Therefore we should beat Sunderland, Fulham etc. I suppose that it would also excuse failing in Europe if indeed we do, as the weaker pound against the Euro means that in real terms we are paying less wages etc etc.

I don't think anybody would pretend though that if a team can pay 50 million quid a season more in wages that it's not an advantage. Equally, if you can go on  Man City style spending spree it helps, but whichever way you look at it we came very close last season. Our challengers with the exception of Arsenal haven't massively improved, so from where I'm saying we ought to be able to make a better fist of it than we are.

In truth whether the difference is £30m or £50m (and apparently it's subsequently been shown to be over £70m at one point ) there is still a massive gap. I would have thought it was patently obvious that they pay considerably more than we do - or at least have done for a good few seasons now.

The rest, I suppose you're arguing against Tompkins because as I've already said, I don't share his view on the matter.

[account deleted by request]

One other thing to take into consideration if we are going to delve as deeply as this is the extra cost of living and working in London. Police and the civil service get extra pay for this maybe we should allow "weighting" for players too

Obviously a £2million house in Liverpool is going to be quite nice, while a similar priced house in London would be more on the lines of a wooden shack with outdoor toilet. So maybe Chelsea and Arsenal have to pay extra to match the expectations of players?  The mancs have no such excuses as most of them aren't toilet trained anyway.

[fivecups]

Update of Flights post, may need further verification. No actual money mentioned but it's something that's been raised in recent discussions.

EXISTING PLAYERS AT TOP FOUR CLUBS WHEN RAFA ARRIVED


ARSENAL (03-04 apps)

Clichy (22, 12 league)
Fabregas (3, cup only)


CHELSEA

Terry (51, 33 league)
J Cole (50, 35)
Lampard (58, 38)


MANCS

Ferdinand (27, 20)
O'Shea (49, 33)
Neville (42, 30)
Giggs (47, 33)
Scholes (40, 28)
Fletcher (35, 22)

LIVERPOOL

Carragher (29, 22)
Gerrard (47, 34)

Updated the list, it's quite different to the original. I also added the number of games played in the 03-04 season. I suppose it would be interesting to have the games played since the summer of 2004 and as measure of their contribution since then.

It should be a useful reference when people say that other teams were more established when Rafa took over.

[bigmick]

The original list was typically accurate though really.

Aside from Drogba, Carvallho, Ferriera, Rooney, Van Persie, Aluminia, Ebouie, possibly Cech, arguably Fabregas and Clichy and no doubt one or two others, it was on the money . In todays market you've probably got about 250 million quids worth of players who shouldn't be on there. Simple mistake to make by the original compiler I suppose .

[bigmick]

Update of Flights post, may need further verification. No actual money mentioned but it's something that's been raised in recent discussions.

EXISTING PLAYERS AT TOP FOUR CLUBS WHEN RAFA ARRIVED


ARSENAL (03-04 apps)

Clichy (22, 12 league)
Fabregas (3, cup only)


CHELSEA

Terry (51, 33 league)
J Cole (50, 35)
Lampard (58, 38)


MANCS

Ferdinand (27, 20)
O'Shea (49, 33)
Neville (42, 30)
Giggs (47, 33)
Scholes (40, 28)
Fletcher (35, 22)

LIVERPOOL

Carragher (29, 22)
Gerrard (47, 34)

Updated the list, it's quite different to the original. I also added the number of games played in the 03-04 season. I suppose it would be interesting to have the games played since the summer of 2004 and as measure of their contribution since then.

It should be a useful reference when people say that other teams were more established when Rafa took over.

Good work though mate, looks a bit more like it now. I'm surprised Clichy had played as many as that in Arsenal's 'invincible" season, Ashley Cole must have been injured I guess.

To be totally honest it's for others to come to their own conclusions, but based on the now correct list, for me anyway it puts all the "but all the others already had a team in place" stuff to bed once and for all.