Liverpool FC Forum

[JC_81]

Some people are going over the top now criticising Benitez's buys.  We made great progress over our first 2 seasons under him and he gradually improved the squad and the first 11.  Granted though, WITH HINDSIGHT, last summer's buys haven't done the business yet.

Lets not forget last summer when everyone was really excited about Gonzalez.  Let's also not forget that most on here thought Bellamy was a decent signing for 6 million and that Pennant would easily improve our right side.  The majority were also in favour of signing Kuyt.  No one thought Aurelio was bad business for a free transfer.  It is only with hindsight that people can sit here and slag off Benitez for signing these players, when in fact the same people probably thought they were good signings at the time.

What other players were available last summer?  Alves is the one quality player we could have had but missed out on.  But do you blame Benitez?  Seville named their price and then when we offered it, they upped the asking price again.  If I'd have been Benitez I'd have walked away too, we can't have some club making fools out of us.  Defoe or SWP?  They're the other 2 that most on here banged on about, and what happened to them?  Both their careers are going backwards at the moment.  Again, hindsight.

Put it in perspective, Benitez has had one less than inspiring summer in the market, it doesn't make him a bad manager.

[kunilson]

^ this is true, much of what he bought last season in the attacking sense has been plagued by injuries too. Maybe the few who do stay will improve, we have already seen Pennant show signs of this..Crouch improved on his first year and hopefully Kuyt will too.

[Bad Bob]

Kuyt was an acceptable signing of £10m-£11m and Gonzales cost in the region of £2m-£3m. The signings of Gonzales and Kuyt cost on average £13m, by my maths (which is terrible) we would have had £17m left (if we didn’t sign Pennant and Bellamy) this substantial amount of money could have been spent on a top class striker.

And which "top class" striker were you thinking was available last summer for 17 million?

Look our financial reality over the last few seasons has required compromises.  We could have blown all 30 million (if indeed that's an accurate figure) on 1 star player, with maybe enough left over for a fringe player but we've had gaps all over the park that needed plugging over the last two seasons.  One striker wasn't going to be enough last season.  We also needed wingers, as the injuries to Kewell, Garcia and Aurelio demonstrated.  Plus, it would be nice to be able to play Gerrard in his preferred and most effective position every now and again.  It gets tiresome to read people diminishing the amount of work that needed to be done in the last two seasons to get the squad into shape.  We needed to sign players in every department of the pitch and have back ups in case they got injured.  And, no, relying on the kids from the reserves to step in and keep us challenging on multiple fronts in the event of an injury to a first-teamer is not the answer.  As limited as he is, I'm glad we had Zenden available to play LM in Kewell's absence against Chelsea and Milan than one of the lads from the reserves.  Ask yourself this: would we have reached two CL finals in two years and, in between, recorded our highest ever points tally in the league while winning the FA Cup, if Rafa had blown his entire transfer budget each summer on 1 top class player.  I strongly doubt we'd have achieved much of anything doing that.

What gaps did we plug last season?

Bellamy was he any better than Cisse ?
Pennant was he any better than Gerrard
Mascherano (loan) Great but did he really plug a gap?
Kuyt - still waiting
Arbeloa - filled a gap

I said before last season 2 great players rather than more squad players. If we had kept Cisse and Pongole in the squad and our new super-striker costing £15million (I went for Sergio Aguero    )and Alves £12million.

Yes we would have been forced to play Crouch more early season as Cisse was injured (would that have been a bad thing looking back?)and Gerrard would have had to spend another season on the right unless we played Alves there, but that would have been two positions sorted instead of the seasonal "lets hope someone buys our failures" so we can buy better.

Cisse would have had a few games after Christmas to sell himself and we could be now looking for the next two signings (CB and RW ) RATHER THAN THE 3 OR 4 WE NOW NEED!

Again I say if we havnt the money to buy all the players we want, buy top class and make do and mend for the positions we can't fill. Then next season we can be buying top class again rather than more squad players to replace squad players.

Aguero managed only 6 goals for Atletico Madrid this season and Alves is a natural RB who may have done the business at RM if called upon or, like Aurelio at LM, may have not quite looked the part.

Holding onto Cisse instead of bringing in Bellamy looks like a decent move in hindsight but, come on, almost everyone could see that the lad's not good enough and we had a potential buyer on the hook in Marseille.  The broken leg bolloxed that up but Rafa tried to salvage the possibility of a later move with the loan arrangement.

As for Pennant, I think he's just about been Gerrard's equal on the right this season, given that the skipper's game never really got going out wide this campaign.

[Bad Bob]

Hey Bob, without going into too much detail, cos' I ain't got the time at the moment.
In a nutshell, the point I am making is that Raf, aint that bloody clear about who he is signing or what plan he is working to!
He is ok with the defence, but then gradually loses the plot through midfield and with the strikers.
He has not had unlimited money, but has had more than most other prem' managers.
He could have signed Berbatov and if he really wanted, he could have signed at least one of the wing backs he has coveted, all in the £5m to £15m category. Instead he has played around with a whole selection of players in the circa £5m category, none of which has really cut the mustard. aint got time to list them all, but you Know who I mean.
Two or three sharp buy's in the med, range category would have been better value to the team than the dozen or so from the bargain basement.

And, no RM because I am hoping that Pennant does come good.

Just to emphasize, again, how hindsight is 20/20, compare Berbatov at Leverkusen to Kuyt at Feyenoord:

Season                  Berbatov          Kuyt

03/04                    16 goals          21 goals
04/05                    25 goals          32 goals
05/06                    21 goals          25 goals

Does that suggest that Rafa made a bad call in signing Kuyt rather than Berbatov?

[Bammo]

We can all agree that Rafa hasn't had 100% success in the transfer market but when has there ever been a manager that has?

For those of you naming Josemi as a waste of money: he cost £2m, was only here for a few months , swapped for Kromkamp who was then sold for £2.5m. So we actually made a profit.

I agree that I'd rather see reserve/youth players playing than bringing in average foreign players. Hopefully we'll see more of Peltier etc this season and Guthrie will prove himself at Bolton.

Pennant had a decent last half of the season. To suggest we should have relied on Gerrard is ludicrous. What if he'd got injured? Then who would we have played there? We're only now getting to the stage where we can aim for star buys in each position. Up until now Rafa has been trying to make sure we have adequate cover for the first team.

How about we judge him on the results he's got us. So far we've had 1 CL and 1 final with the players he brought in so they can't be that bad. If the team fails to improve in the league then maybe some criticism is necessary but it's a bit over the top at the moment.

Perhaps all this is due to our frustration at the seemingly slow progress of transfers at the moment. I'm sure if we've signed Torres, Mancini and a few more by August we'll be raving about his transfer policy!

[kunilson]

Just to emphasize, again, how hindsight is 20/20, compare Berbatov at Leverkusen to Kuyt at Feyenoord:

Season                  Berbatov          Kuyt

03/04                    16 goals          21 goals
04/05                    25 goals          32 goals
05/06                    21 goals          25 goals

Does that suggest that Rafa made a bad call in signing Kuyt rather than Berbatov?

 

not a bad call at all.....but has he been played in a way that he can reproduce those statistics with us?

[account deleted by request]

Kuyt was an acceptable signing of £10m-£11m and Gonzales cost in the region of £2m-£3m. The signings of Gonzales and Kuyt cost on average £13m, by my maths (which is terrible) we would have had £17m left (if we didn’t sign Pennant and Bellamy) this substantial amount of money could have been spent on a top class striker.

And which "top class" striker were you thinking was available last summer for 17 million?

Look our financial reality over the last few seasons has required compromises.  We could have blown all 30 million (if indeed that's an accurate figure) on 1 star player, with maybe enough left over for a fringe player but we've had gaps all over the park that needed plugging over the last two seasons.  One striker wasn't going to be enough last season.  We also needed wingers, as the injuries to Kewell, Garcia and Aurelio demonstrated.  Plus, it would be nice to be able to play Gerrard in his preferred and most effective position every now and again.  It gets tiresome to read people diminishing the amount of work that needed to be done in the last two seasons to get the squad into shape.  We needed to sign players in every department of the pitch and have back ups in case they got injured.  And, no, relying on the kids from the reserves to step in and keep us challenging on multiple fronts in the event of an injury to a first-teamer is not the answer.  As limited as he is, I'm glad we had Zenden available to play LM in Kewell's absence against Chelsea and Milan than one of the lads from the reserves.  Ask yourself this: would we have reached two CL finals in two years and, in between, recorded our highest ever points tally in the league while winning the FA Cup, if Rafa had blown his entire transfer budget each summer on 1 top class player.  I strongly doubt we'd have achieved much of anything doing that.

What gaps did we plug last season?

Bellamy was he any better than Cisse ?
Pennant was he any better than Gerrard
Mascherano (loan) Great but did he really plug a gap?
Kuyt - still waiting
Arbeloa - filled a gap

I said before last season 2 great players rather than more squad players. If we had kept Cisse and Pongole in the squad and our new super-striker costing £15million (I went for Sergio Aguero    )and Alves £12million.

Yes we would have been forced to play Crouch more early season as Cisse was injured (would that have been a bad thing looking back?)and Gerrard would have had to spend another season on the right unless we played Alves there, but that would have been two positions sorted instead of the seasonal "lets hope someone buys our failures" so we can buy better.

Cisse would have had a few games after Christmas to sell himself and we could be now looking for the next two signings (CB and RW ) RATHER THAN THE 3 OR 4 WE NOW NEED!

Again I say if we havnt the money to buy all the players we want, buy top class and make do and mend for the positions we can't fill. Then next season we can be buying top class again rather than more squad players to replace squad players.

Aguero managed only 6 goals for Atletico Madrid this season and Alves is a natural RB who may have done the business at RM if called upon or, like Aurelio at LM, may have not quite looked the part.

Holding onto Cisse instead of bringing in Bellamy looks like a decent move in hindsight but, come on, almost everyone could see that the lad's not good enough and we had a potential buyer on the hook in Marseille.  The broken leg bolloxed that up but Rafa tried to salvage the possibility of a later move with the loan arrangement.

As for Pennant, I think he's just about been Gerrard's equal on the right this season, given that the skipper's game never really got going out wide this campaign.

I may have been wrong about Aguero    but he's a creative second striker not a striker, so I wouldnt have expected 20 goals from him. He was one for the future as hes only very young. Alves would have been first choice RB not my winger, except to give Gerrard a break.

My point about Cisse was why move him out to bring in someone who's not CLEARLY better.ie (stop gap)Use him until we had the money to buy a top class replacement rather than a "bargain buy".

Your point about Pennant is not a good one mate, Pennant played OK from January, the season started in August. If Gerrard had been able to have a settled season on the right instead of being pushed from pillar to post he might have had a better season.

As I said we plugged no gaps really, if we had bought 2 top quality players rather than the scatter gunapproach we employed we would have two less positions to fill now.

For information only, I think Rafa is a great manager, I wouldn't want him to leave even if we win nothing again this season. I just think he needs to improve in the transfer market where I feel he has been ok but not great.

[Bad Bob]

And which "top class" striker were you thinking was available last summer for 17 million?

Look our financial reality over the last few seasons has required compromises.  We could have blown all 30 million (if indeed that's an accurate figure) on 1 star player, with maybe enough left over for a fringe player but we've had gaps all over the park that needed plugging over the last two seasons.  One striker wasn't going to be enough last season.  We also needed wingers, as the injuries to Kewell, Garcia and Aurelio demonstrated.  Plus, it would be nice to be able to play Gerrard in his preferred and most effective position every now and again.  It gets tiresome to read people diminishing the amount of work that needed to be done in the last two seasons to get the squad into shape.  We needed to sign players in every department of the pitch and have back ups in case they got injured.  And, no, relying on the kids from the reserves to step in and keep us challenging on multiple fronts in the event of an injury to a first-teamer is not the answer.  As limited as he is, I'm glad we had Zenden available to play LM in Kewell's absence against Chelsea and Milan than one of the lads from the reserves.  Ask yourself this: would we have reached two CL finals in two years and, in between, recorded our highest ever points tally in the league while winning the FA Cup, if Rafa had blown his entire transfer budget each summer on 1 top class player.  I strongly doubt we'd have achieved much of anything doing that.

Miroslav Klose was a player I wanted to see us go for last summer; I was surprised that no one went in for him and as a result he is off to Bayern next summer.

Yes the budgets have needed compromise, I haven’t said this wasn’t the case; more often than not a compromise or series of compromises is needed. Why would anyone want to spend their entire budget on one player? I have not suggested or advocated this, I suggested that Benitez should have signed one accomplished player as well as signing the likes of Luis Garcia and Xabi Alonso. (I am not dismissing either player as not being accomplished).

There have had gaps and there still are gaps even though the gap has been ‘filled’, the signing of Pennant is an example, he has done little to change the right wing situation and I don’t think he will change the situation. The signings of Crouch, Bellamy and Kuyt have not changed the fortunes of our striker situation, we score goals, but not enough goals and we now find ourselves relying on a couple of outlets (Crouch & Gerrard) for a majority of our goals. I understand that the midfield has to be taken into account too, the wings haven’t been used effectively and the creativity from the wings has been minimal; however there have been more than enough chances for the strikers to score goals and for the team to win matches.

I’m of the opinion that if you are going to fill the gaps in the starting eleven you should fill them with accomplished players (not fringe players), this doesn’t all have to happen in one or two seasons, rebuilding a squad with a miserly budget like we had last season can take a number of seasons. One striker might not have been enough last season, however someone like Klose along with Kuyt and Crouch would have done substantially better than Bellamy who is a limited player in terms of ability. Gerrard could play on the right, Kuyt could have played on the right if needed (I know it’s not ideal). On the left we had Zenden, Gonzales and Riise who could have filled the void along with a few reserves, it’s not ideal, then again the situation this club finds itself in isn’t in itself ideal.

Who is diminishing the work that has needed to be done? Benitez has an up-hill struggle with this football club, I have acknowledged this in a previous post, but by signing a load of fringe players, he is just making more work for himself in the long term. I’d rather Benitez signed one top class player (for example Klose) and two very good players (similar to Luis Garcia and Xabi Alonso) and spend whatever else is left over on some fringe players or pick up players on a free transfer (Zenden). I guess I prefer a gradual building process instead of introducing an overhaul of fringe players who will be replaced sooner or later; to me this makes more work and unnecessary work. Subtle change is more effective than mass change.

As for challenging for competitions, I didn’t expect us to challenge for competitions, so winning the Champions League, FA Cup, European Super Cup and the Community Shield has been truly wonderful. I certainly never thought we could challenge for the Premiership since Rafa has arrived, I did expect gradual change to the team and one top signing or a handful of accomplished signings, which hasn’t happened. I am not unhappy with how Liverpool has progressed and I am pleased we have won some silverware; I just feel that Benitez could have done things differently in terms of the transfer market.

I fail to see a problem with using reserve team players as understudies instead of wasting resources on the likes of Josemi; to me this makes perfect sense. Reserves should be given matches to prove themselves and gain experience; I fail to understand the concept of having a reserve team if you aren’t going to give the reserves a break in the first team. It’s also a pragmatic and sensible option. Someone like Lee Peltier wouldn’t have been any worse than Josemi was at RB. The signing of Zenden was okay, I supported it as I knew what we were getting with Bolo and it was on a free transfer, there is no dispute with that signing or these signings (if they are on a free).

I have to ask you where have you gotten this idea that I am advocating spending our entire budget on one player? If you have read my posts, you will see I have advocated signings like Alonso’s, Kuyt’s, Reina’s and Garcia’s along with a top class player (s), this can be achieved (obviously not in one single transfer window) with the right methods and the right idea’s, even more so now with the relatively new owners.

I cannot answer your question regarding the method (I have advocated) in terms of what Benitez has achieved since he arrived because there is no real way of forecasting or predicting such a thing. All I can say is, it’s a possibly, but I cannot say for definite. What I do know is that Rafa will have to replace all of these players at some point and the rebuilding process will start over again as players enter and players leave.

Look, mate, I hear what you're saying but I just don't think it's financially reasonable.  Take, for instance, your suggestion about signing Klose last summer instead of Bellamy to complement Crouch and Kuyt.  Well, there was no way we were going to be able to afford both Klose and Kuyt.  Just as we couldn't afford to sign both Alves and Kuyt.  Until the new owners came in--and even then there's debate--Rafa has simply not had the cash to follow your strategy of "signing one top class player and two very good players" in a single transfer window. 

Look at the numbers this summer if you don't believe me.  Say we wanted to sign a top class striker and two good wingers.  Well, Eto'o is rumoured to cost around 30 million, Villa's up in that price bracket too, while Torres and Tevez may be in the neighbourhood of 25 million.  As for good wingers, we've got Malouda valued around 17 million, Mancini around the same and Simao a comparative bargain in the 12-14 million range.  So, we're looking at spending in the neighbourhood of 50-55 million to get the kind of signings your advocating.  There was no chance Rafa had that kind of cash to spend in previous years and I'd be very surprised if he has that kind of cash to spend now.

[Bad Bob]

Just to emphasize, again, how hindsight is 20/20, compare Berbatov at Leverkusen to Kuyt at Feyenoord:

Season                  Berbatov          Kuyt

03/04                    16 goals          21 goals
04/05                    25 goals          32 goals
05/06                    21 goals          25 goals

Does that suggest that Rafa made a bad call in signing Kuyt rather than Berbatov?

 

not a bad call at all.....but has he been played in a way that he can reproduce those statistics with us?

Now that's a different debate entirely!

[account deleted by request]

We can forget Klose now anyway

Bayern Munich have struck a deal to sign Miroslav Klose from Werder Bremen this summer.

Klose had 12 months remaining on his Bremen contract and had already outlined his intention to join Bayern in 2008.

However, the Bavarian club have been keen to reach an agreement with their Bundesliga rivals to sign the striker in time for the new season.

Club president Franz Beckenbauer, along with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, had stressed the desire to ensure Klose was added to the squad for next term.

Both clubs have now confirmed that a transfer fee has been agreed, with Klose signing a four-year contract at the Allianz Arena.

Bremen general manager Klaus Allofs said: "Bayern fulfilled our expectations and we approved the transfer under those conditions."

Reports in Germany claim that Bayern will pay €15million (£10million) for the Polish-born hit-man, who was top scorer at the 2006 World Cup.

Klose will form a new-look strike-force for Bayern next season following the capture of Italian ace Luca Toni from Fiorentina.

skysports

[Bad Bob]

I may have been wrong about Aguero    but he's a creative second striker not a striker, so I wouldnt have expected 20 goals from him. He was one for the future as hes only very young.

So, blowing half of our transfer budget on an 18-year old prospect who may or may not come good is a better option than signing a Dutch international who'd scored 71 goals in 101 games in the Eredivisie?  Sure, Aguero may have turned out to be an inspired signing or an even more expensive flop than Cisse.

Alves would have been first choice RB not my winger, except to give Gerrard a break.

But was spending 12 million to replace Finnan a top priority last summer?  And, if Gerrard's going to remain first choice RM why not focus on getting a decent specialist right midfielder for a reasonable price to back him up?  Wait, that's what we did with Pennant right?

My point about Cisse was why move him out to bring in someone who's not CLEARLY better.ie (stop gap)Use him until we had the money to buy a top class replacement rather than a "bargain buy".

Now, this is a poor argument, mate.  It was clear that he wasn't good enough and he'd just broken his leg.  So, we were going to hold onto a player who didn't fit our plans even though he wouldn't be able to kick a ball for us before Christmas at the earliest?  Besides, Marseille were interested despite the broken leg so it made sense to let them pay him while he recovered in the hopes that the move could be made permanent.  Sure, Bellamy may have been stop-gap but we had lost out on the funds we would have had from Cisse's transfer, other strikers were much more expensive and he'd just had a decent campaign for Blackburn.  We could have easily spent twice as much money a for player that offered us little more than Bellamy did (e.g. Bent). 

Your point about Pennant is not a good one mate, Pennant played OK from January, the season started in August. If Gerrard had been able to have a settled season on the right instead of being pushed from pillar to post he might have had a better season.

Possibly.  Alternatively, there's something to Big Mick's argument about the fact that teams figured out how to interrupt the supply to Gerrard and thus to neutralize him.  Plus, without Kewell or, to a lesser extent, Garcia on the opposite flank to carry an attacking threat, it was easier to focus on marking Gerrard out of the match when he was out wide.

As I said we plugged no gaps really, if we had bought 2 top quality players rather than the scatter gunapproach we employed we would have two less positions to fill now.

I still contend that we didn't have the money last summer to buy even two truly "top quality" players.  Our greatest need was for a striker and right winger and top end players for those positions don't come cheap.  To follow your strategy of buying quality, I think we would have had to focus on one of those two needs and poured most of our available budget into one player, leaving the other position vacant.  In hindsight that sounds reasonable but last summer we were all pretty certain that both problem areas needed to be addressed if we were to progress.

[account deleted by request]

So, blowing half of our transfer budget on an 18-year old prospect who may or may not come good is a better option than signing a Dutch international who'd scored 71 goals in 101 games in the Eredivisie?  Sure, Aguero may have turned out to be an inspired signing or an even more expensive flop than Cisse.

I didn't say I was right to pick Aguero, I was just saying who I did pick at the time. Personally Kuyts 12 goals as our main striker, against Aguero's 6 goals as a creative second striker for a poorer team and with more to come as h develops doesnt sound too bad to me.

But was spending 12 million to replace Finnan a top priority last summer?  And, if Gerrard's going to remain first choice RM why not focus on getting a decent specialist right midfielder for a reasonable price to back him up?  Wait, that's what we did with Pennant right?

Thats my argument in a nutshell, Pennant is decent backup not a sown on first team starter, Alves would have been, with Finnan as great backup. Thats why we are looking to pay £17MILLION for another Right Winger. If we had saved £8million by not buying Pennant maybe we wouldnt be struggling now to pay for quality. Why keep buying players who are no better than what we have.

Now, this is a poor argument, mate.  It was clear that he wasn't good enough and he'd just broken his leg.  So, we were going to hold onto a player who didn't fit our plans even though he wouldn't be able to kick a ball for us before Christmas at the earliest?  Besides, Marseille were interested despite the broken leg so it made sense to let them pay him while he recovered in the hopes that the move could be made permanent.  Sure, Bellamy may have been stop-gap but we had lost out on the funds we would have had from Cisse's transfer, other strikers were much more expensive and he'd just had a decent campaign for Blackburn.  We could have easily spent twice as much money a for player that offered us little more than Bellamy did (e.g. Bent). 

Cisse scored 20 goals for us after coming back from a horrendous injury, he could have filled a position for another year. Better that than loaning him out, just to bring in similar in Bellamy. The idea is to improve the team not just add players. Hopefully we can sell Bellamy at a profit, what happens if he says he doesn't want to go? (which he has done!) We are then stuck with him for years like Diao.

As I said if you can't buy better DONT BUY, save the money until you can. If we couldnt afford a top striker and a top winger (which in my opinion we could ) we should have either improved the team in another area- Alves, or spent all our money on a player that would improve the team rather than 7 players who didn't.(Infact they probably made the team poorer because they had to settle in, then be "rested" while other players filled in , then given another chance before finally being shunted to the sidelines.)

The truth is we bought too many players for our limited budget, we should have improved the team not the squad, now we have to go through the same situation all over again, only with Bellamy joining the growing band of misfits with Voronin to join them after this season. We have a huge squad (if and when all our loans come back) surely its time to stop buying stopgaps and buy some quality.

[LFC2007]

If we had saved £8million by not buying Pennant maybe we wouldnt be struggling now to pay for quality. Why keep buying players who are no better than what we have.

So what do you do in the meantime? Play Gerrard as an out and out winger all the time? You have to plug gaps when the funds are not available in order to balance the team. It's not as simple, for example, as saying if we hadn't spent £7m on Crouch and £10m on Kuyt then we may be able to afford a better striker now. The same applies to the Pennant argument.

[account deleted by request]

We had just finished 3rd with Gerrard and Garcia playing Right Wing, so we had players who could play there, so why buy a limited player for £8million who we then have to spend even more money replacing. We spent £26million are you saying we couldnt have got better than Pennant for that ? You put the money were its needed if your need is for a right winger get the best you can, not the best you can after buying 6 other squad players.

[LFC2007]

Well Rafa clearly felt we needed a natural righht winger to balance the side, Garcia and Gerrard are not natural right wingers and we needed that option at the very least. The fact we finished third is besides the point, there are a whole range of reasons we finished third, although we achieved a lower points total our efforts were clearly focussed on the UCL in the latter stages.

We spent £26m, on Kuyt, Pennant and Bellamy. IMO we needed Kuyt, Bellamy replaced Cisse and Pennant was the only feasible option for £8m. Are you saying we should not have signed Kuyt and Bellamy and spent all that money on a right winger? I disagree if you do, Kuyt was a necessity and we needed a player with pace and better control than Cisse - Bellamy for only £6m was ideal.