Liverpool FC Forum

by **matrix** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:12 am

Benitez puts blame on board for débâcle
By Andy Hunter
Published: 11 January 2007
The inquest opened into Liverpool's humiliating Carling Cup defeat by Arsenal with manager Rafael Benitez blaming the Anfield board for a lack of investment in young players and the goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek excusing his own lamentable display on a lack of match sharpness. Between them, they passed the buck with more conviction than the team had passed the ball during the club's heaviest home defeat for 77 years.

Recriminations had commenced long before it was announced Luis Garcia would miss the rest of the season with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee - and for Dudek, out of contract in the summer, plus Lee Peltier and Danny Guthrie, Academy graduates for whom self-belief is essential at this stage in their development, the consequences may be far-reaching. As they could be for Liverpool's prospective new owners, Dubai International Capital, who might be in a position officially to commence their £400m takeover of the club from the chairman, David Moores, next week.

Until yesterday Benitez had kept in check his frustration at the board's inability and occasional reluctance to secure his primary transfer targets, but the Spaniard has never disguised his irritation at the production line at the Liverpool Academy or the club's failure to follow the Arsenal system of investing heavily in young talent from around the globe. It was a complaint he raised prior to the postponed Carling Cup quarter-final in December and will no doubt stress again to the representatives of DIC once they assume control, but it does not address the reasons for the excruciating end to Liverpool's domestic cup ambitions for this season.

Benitez, his hopes of a trophy this season now resting on a Champions' League date with Barcelona, insisted: "The conclusion that worries me is Arsenal could pick nine reserves and score six goals at Anfield.

"We had seven players with first-team experience and could not win. There is a lesson there for the whole of our club. If you want to compete at the top level you must be able to spend a lot of money not only on your first team, but on the young players and reserves. Arsenal spent £4m on [Abou] Diaby, £4m on Denilson, £8m on [Theo] Walcott and [Julio] Baptista is a £22m player.

"They have been working for 10 years to build a strong squad and we have been working for two," he added. "My scouting department has done an excellent job but sometimes we go too slowly as a club to make the signings we need and when we do there is not a lot of money.

"Today for example we are signing a young Italian goalkeeper on loan [Sampdoria's Daniele Padelli] with an option for later. We have also been working for many weeks to sign the young Scot, James McCarthy [from Hamilton Academicals]. These are the deals we are doing because we want to build for the future but without spending money it is difficult."

However, Benitez has been lavished with comparable funds to Arsène Wenger since his arrival in 2004 - swelled by the riches from his Champions' League triumph in 2005 while Arsenal were building a new stadium - and Liverpool were outclassed on Tuesday because their manager made nine changes to his side. The bottom line.

"I used Momo Sissoko in the Carling Cup at Birmingham and we lost him for four months. Now we have lost Garcia for the rest of the season and [Mark] Gonzalez and [Stephen] Warnock are also injured," he said. "What is more important? The Premiership, Champions' League or Carling Cup? If Arsenal can play nine reserves and score six at Anfield, people should be asking why is this. It's not because of one game, it's because of many reasons."

Dudek was also quick to defend his part in Liverpool's first six-goal reverse at Anfield since 1930. "I'm devastated," the stand-in goalkeeper admitted. "I've never had a game like that before. Almost every shot went in.

"I just wanted to take my opportunity and build some confidence," Dudek added, "but it is difficult. The last time I had played at Anfield until Saturday was in March. For a goalkeeper you can use experience, but you can't build confidence in training. It's very, very difficult."

benitez comes clean on the frustration at the club...

notice how quick the press says rafa blames the board, i wouldn't go that far but i think he is at odds with them for missing out on important transfer targets over the last 2 years...

behind the scenes who knows what's going on...
i hope everything is cool with rafa and the board...

by **Ciggy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:17 am

Its a case of passing the book, Rafa should have just played our strongest team, I dont think he wanted this cup with the extra games it would have brought.
But I also dont think like none of did that it would have been so humiliating a pathetic disgraceful defeat after 77 years.
I feel ashamed and so should he.

by **woof woof !** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:19 am

I'm sure everything is ok between Rafa and the current board . Not sure however what the new mob (if they come in) will make of it .

by **Ciggy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:22 am

woof woof ! wrote:. Not sure however what the new mob (if they come in) will make of it .

Honest answer woof, I think they will be reluctant to give Rafa an open cheque book.

by **puroresu** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:50 am

I agree to a certain extent Rafa has missed out on targets due to the financial situation at the club. However that doesnt diguise the fact that some signings have been poor. Paying £7 mil for Pennant was crazy.

by **Ciggy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:55 am

puroresu wrote: Paying £7 mil for Pennant was crazy.

Totally agree he no wonder Wenger got rid laughing stock 7 million.
He wouldnt get near that Arsenal team that walloped us the other night.

by **Sabre** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:55 am

No matter how much money do you invest in youth system, a certain amount of patience will always be needed with youth system. Players like Gerrard or Alonso that come from two different youth academies are not very common. Most of the players need patience, more patience than the one I could read when people talked about Guthrie and Paletta in this forum.

I don't see things eye to eye with Rafa in this matter. While I agree that working in a youth system is not a matter of 2 seasons but a longer haul, I'd never demand the board to spend important amount of money like 5 Million pounds. I've seen far too many hot promises that ended in nothing to demand this.

I don't agree to put suddenly 3-4 youngsters to play against Arsenal a whole match. IMO Young players must be entered in the team progresively. First 10 minutes in a won game, then perhaps 30 mins, then an easy cup tie... Giving them an important match suddenly is not the best way to deal with Youngsters, but then that's my opinion.

LFC nowadays doesn't play defensively. I don't bloody care what the media says, we don't play defensively. That means that the CB plays to the limit, taking quite a lot of risks. If LFC is at home and the oposition scores first, LFC seeks the goal with 7 men on front of the ball, you can see that last two games. And to do that you must play to the limit. And to play to the limit in the defence you need games together and quality.

Carra and Hyppia and Agger didn't have the best start of the season. They needed some time to be effective the new couples. That's why we conceded some important goals at the beginning, we play to the limit, many risks we need the clock working perfectly. We achieved that later and then our results started to improve. If you add the not playing together factor to unexperience, and if you look for the goal with 7 men valiantly, 6 goals against Arsenal can happen. And it happened.

I'm gutted because not only the score is harsh to accept, but we also have lost confidence in the work we're doing with the youngsters. And that's a bad thing. I do not like Rafa expressing his frustation this way, to be honest. More patience is needed. Sometimes youth systems only give one player in 3 years, other times 3 in one. You never know, but patience is a must.

by **tubby** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:11 am

He is right though when he was talking about being locked out in bidding by Arsenal for players like Walcott and Denilson. I think our scouts are as good as any other clubs but these days for even youngsters money is important. If we dont have it then we have to settle for second best players who are cheaper and may not make it. Thats not to say they wont but you only have to look at how their kids played against us to see the difference in class.

Everybody has talked about Guthrie, Anderson and the rest. Perhaps you have seen more of them play as ive onlyl seen them in pre season and read on here what there like but surely the best test is how they perform in the 1st team and to be honest my perception was that they looked cak. Fair enough they could have been having a bad day.

by **Sabre** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:16 am

Players like Denilson, and Baptista, that had regular first team football in teams like Betis, Sevilla and Real Madrid, cannot be considered future players. They are realities. Expensive realities. They're luxury reserves, they could play in almost any premier team regularly. You need insultant amounts of money to afford that.

by **Kopjon** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:37 am

I can understand Rafa's frustrations, but so far he has spent around £60m i believe and he though he has brought in some potentially talented players, in my view he has wasted around £15m on the following signings (Not sure about Palletta at mo);

Gabriel Paletta - Banfield £2,000,000
Jan Kromkamp - Villarreal *player exchange Antonio Nunez*
Antonio Barragan (Sevilla) £240,000
Fernando Morientes Real Madrid £6.300,000
Antonio Nunez Real Madrid *Part of owen transfer*
Josemi Malaga £2,000,000
Jermaine Pennant Birmingham £7,000,000

Now i know some signings wont always make it, but he mentioned several of arsenals "reserves" costing around £4. Well in my view he'd have been better off signing 4 very promising £4m players, rather than cheaper 'stop-gap' players and overpriced players like Pennant.

Its all very well moaning about a lack of money, but if Rafa had kept Owen, got in there and got Baptista on loan before arsenal, whilst spent an extra £1m on Walcott instead of Pennant and also kept Ciise, then i think we would have won the title by now.

I suppose in hindsight its easy to say that, but i just feel some of his transfers have been VERY questionable.

by **puroresu** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:49 am

I am surprised we havent got more young talent from spain.

Pennant I think was a panic buy. He couldnt get Alves and really needed a RW so paid over the odds for Pennant.

by **Ciggy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:01 am

Kopjon wrote:Its all very well moaning about a lack of money, but if Rafa had kept Owen, got in there and got Baptista on loan before arsenal,

Baptista was part of the Reyes deal, no one else could have got him.

by **Ace Ventura** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:02 am

Kopjon wrote:I can understand Rafa's frustrations, but so far he has spent around £60m i believe and he though he has brought in some potentially talented players, in my view he has wasted around £15m on the following signings (Not sure about Palletta at mo);

Gabriel Paletta - Banfield £2,000,000
Jan Kromkamp - Villarreal *player exchange Antonio Nunez*
Antonio Barragan (Sevilla) £240,000
Fernando Morientes Real Madrid £6.300,000
Antonio Nunez Real Madrid *Part of owen transfer*
Josemi Malaga £2,000,000
Jermaine Pennant Birmingham £7,000,000

Now i know some signings wont always make it, but he mentioned several of arsenals "reserves" costing around £4. Well in my view he'd have been better off signing 4 very promising £4m players, rather than cheaper 'stop-gap' players and overpriced players like Pennant.

Its all very well moaning about a lack of money, but if Rafa had kept Owen, got in there and got Baptista on loan before arsenal, whilst spent an extra £1m on Walcott instead of Pennant and also kept Ciise, then i think we would have won the title by now.

I suppose in hindsight its easy to say that, but i just feel some of his transfers have been VERY questionable.

We made money on Barragan, who by the way looks a good player but was homesick.
Nunez was forced on rafa and shipped out soon enough.
Josemi looked promising at first but as soon as rafa seen he wasnt upto it, he was shifted out, Krompkamp wasnt good enough BUT allowed us to get the full amount we paid for Josemi back.
Morientes we all thought would be fantastic but didnt suit to the pace of the premiership.
Pennant was always rafa's second choice and still may come good, he has shown signs in the last few games that he is gaining confidence.
Cisse was awful and if you think that he would of helped us win the title then you are seriously deluded.
Baptista is a good player but has hardly set the world alight at Arsenal and i doubt he will even be there next season.
Walcott has showed me nothing in the games i have watched him to suggest he is ready for a first team position yet.
He may be class in a couple of years but he didnt cause us many problems in the 6-3 debacle.

by **Big Niall** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:27 pm

Wenger has not spent loads of money, he just has the highest success rate (not perfect though) of any manager. He is the best manager I've ever seen at spotting and nurturing talent.

Arsenal didn't have much cash due to their stadium. His net spending is probably close to nil due to the big sales his made.

by **Kopjon** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:49 pm

One or two points from responces i didnt realise (profit on barragan etc) so apologies for my error there.

Really i was only putting my view across that our current first eleven arguably has 5 or 6 players before Benitez took over (Finnan, Riise, Carra, Hypia (until recently), Gerrard, (and poss Kewell on his day), so i felt £60m has not been that well spent. Though i appracite those 6 were probably a good foundation to build from i personally would have liked us to have kept two or three who have gone, as they dont seem to be any better than some of the players we have signed.

I do take offence to being called deluded though, it was only a view. I thought this was meant to be a message board for debates and views, not insults.

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