Liverpool FC Forum

by **puroresu** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:09 pm

Big Niall wrote: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.

The huge profit on Anelka crazy. I dare to think what Fabregas will go for.

by **stmichael** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:18 pm

I'm not really comfortable with the way Rafa deflects any blame for tuesday night away from himself and the other coaching staff in those comments.

And if he has issues with the board, there's probably a more appropriate forum for resolution than through the media.

Also, I'd imagine we've spent a lot more on first team players than Arsenal have over the last 2 years - they've prioritised youth investment as a way forward as opposed to spending huge sums on established players.

by **Ace Ventura** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:40 pm

Kopjon wrote: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.

Apologies mate, its just Cisse really gets my back up.
He was a poor player and played only for himself.

Some of rafa's signings havent been great but you have to give him credit for getting rid of players he has signed who havent done the business, josemi, pellegrino, morientes and kromkamp.

He has spent plenty of money but his budget has been limited, if that makes sense, what i mean is that he hasnt really been able to get the players he wanted and has had to settle for second or third on his list of players.

The likes of Agger Alonso, Sissoko Bellamy and Kuyt were great signing imo.
Its all about opinions at the end of the day.

by **Bad Bob** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:51 pm

Sabre wrote: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.

This is a very important point, mate, and one that gets overlooked when comparing the youth teams at both clubs. You also talked a lot of sense in the earlier post about how to integrate youth properly into the first team. Throwing reserves and kids in against Arsenal is always going to end in tears, IMO.

by **stmichael** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:52 pm

I'm not trying to compare the squads. Actually I don't think Arsenal are all that, which actually makes our 3 results against them this season more the worrying. I'm trying to compare what we are acheiving against the expectations the manager set when he said we can compete. Personally, I'd sooner we went down the 1 or 2 quality signings per season route than this quantity over quality. Equally I'd then understand that perhaps we would then not have the depth to the squad and expect us to be less competitive when we rotate - although at the moment it seems we have a decent size squad, but we're f#cked if we rotate anyway.

My concern here is the manager thought he had a good enough squad. It's shown he hasn't, so instead of taking responsibility and working out why we're not as good as he thought, he's decided to pass the buck. That kind of response, as well as not being helpful to the club, imo won't help us solve the currrent problem and progress.

by **Bad Bob** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:56 pm

stmichael wrote:My concern here is the manager thought he had a good enough squad. It's shown he hasn't, so instead of taking responsibility and working out why we're not as good as he thought, he's decided to pass the buck. That kind of response, as well as not being helpful to the club, imo won't help us solve the currrent problem and progress.

Agreed...this is a worry. I hppe some of it is paper spin and lost in translation stuff but there is a distinct lack of the "I fecked up" with Rafa. One mea culpa would go a long way with fans who can't understand why we wouldn't really go after our best shot at silverware this season.

by **puroresu** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:59 pm

At the start of the season I thought the squad had improved but the team actually didnt.

by **Kopjon** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:09 pm

Ace Ventura wrote:Apologies mate, its just Cisse really gets my back up.
He was a poor player and played only for himself.

Some of rafa's signings havent been great but you have to give him credit for getting rid of players he has signed who havent done the business, josemi, pellegrino, morientes and kromkamp.

No probs and that is spot on, he does tend to get rid of the players that dont do the business pretty quickly.

I think Rafa will lead us back to the glory days again, but it all hindges on the take-over so that he can bring in the players he wants and not the second or third choice.

I have to admit Ciise frustrated me too, but one wonders if he was ever given the backing by benitez from the start as he seems the sort of player that needs to know he's appreciated. I remeber he started brilliantly last season, banging in the goals, but once Morientes was back and fit, Ciise was dropped or pushed out wide.

What sort of player could he have been had Houlier still been incharge. (Houlier with a more attacking mentality like benitez that is)

by **stmichael** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:28 pm

puroresu wrote:
Big Niall wrote: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.

The huge profit on Anelka crazy. I dare to think what Fabregas will go for.

When Wenger arrived he bought the likes of Henry, Vieira, Petit, Overmars, Anelka. They pretty much went straight into the team.

So, years later when he was looking to buy players, he could get some youngsters in safe in the knowledge that the first team was of championship winning standard.

It's two totally different situations. If Rafa had bought two 17 year olds for £4M each, he'd have got crucified for looking at the future when the present was most important.

Basically, Wenger started his youth recruitment when he had a quality side anyway. Rafa is having to build a quality side first and foremost.

by **A.B.** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:47 pm

This article is misleading. Where does Rafa blame the board for the result? The name of the article is totaly misleading

by **Elchris** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:57 pm

Good point St.Micheal totaly agree wif ya...!!!

by **RUSHIE#9** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:47 pm

Bad Bob wrote:
stmichael wrote:My concern here is the manager thought he had a good enough squad. It's shown he hasn't, so instead of taking responsibility and working out why we're not as good as he thought, he's decided to pass the buck. That kind of response, as well as not being helpful to the club, imo won't help us solve the currrent problem and progress.

Agreed...this is a worry. I hppe some of it is paper spin and lost in translation stuff but there is a distinct lack of the "I fecked up" with Rafa. One mea culpa would go a long way with fans who can't understand why we wouldn't really go after our best shot at silverware this season.

A.B.

This article is misleading. Where does Rafa blame the board for the result? The name of the article is totaly misleading

Good spot there A.B. there is not one quote attributed to Rafa saying, "The board have to take the blame for tonight as they didn't give me the money to buy these young players like arsenal" or anything similar. I think alot has been made of him saying that we win as a club and we lose as a club together. There are maybe one or two digs at the amount of funds he's had available to him within his comments but that all depends on how you interpret them.
I agree with Bob that Rafa maybe should've admitted that he changed too many players on tuesday but he does have a valid point when he says we win together and we lose together.
I still say that Rafa dropped a bollok on Tuesday but you can sort of see his point of view about rotating players for these sort games from his comment about having lost MOMO, Gonzalez, Warnock and Garcia to injuries in Carling Cup games this season. Had these injuries happened to Gerrard, Carra or Alonso we'd be further up sh1t creek than we are now.

by **Crouchamania** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 5:28 pm

This season has had some great moments at times but at others has been a total nightmare. How many games this season have we got better resuslts (points wise) than in the same fixtures last season? I can think of 2 and thats Charlton and Tottenham away.

by **puroresu** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 6:15 pm

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has complained of a lack of transfer funds available to him to sign promising young players.

After seeing his team thrashed 6-3 by an Arsenal team with an average age of just 20 among the outfield players, many of Benitez recent signings were criticised in the press, though Benitez insisted he would have invested in some of the Gunners' stars had he been able to.

"I do not really like to talk now about who we want and who Arsenal have signed, that would be too easy," he said.

"But they have two or three players that we were monitoring and we couldn't sign because we didn't have the money.

With a takeover of the club led by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's Dubai-based investment group in the offing, Benitez urged his club to pour more money into the recruitment of top young players.

"We have to keep on going, to do the same as Arsene," he added. But if you want top-class players you must spend money, not only at senior level but at youth level too."

"We know about some of these players Arsenal have signed, we had reports on them. But if you cannot pay six million euros for Diaby or Denilson, you cannot buy them."

by **Rush Job** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:48 pm

I think Rafa`s done ok in the transfer market but what worrys me is he seems to favour intelligence and technical ability over physical strengh and pace. Ideally of course you would like a mix of all those attributes but in our league strengh is needed and pace is a must, all Arsenals youngsters are strong athletic and quick, our youngters no matter how good technicaly they may be just couldn`t mix it with them.
Our side IMO still needs an injection of pace, but im not sure its at the top of Rafa`s list. He also seems to like south Americans witch is fine given they are good enough but looking at Paletta he is short for a center back ( not uncommon in SA) whitch dosent help and he looks slow and not very strong.
I suppose what im saying is some of his signings ( though im sure are all good players technicaly ) just don`t look suited to this league, i can not belive how Rafa could ever think the likes of Pellegrino Nunez proberly Palleta and Gonzales definataly Morrientes could ever play there game and compete in this league were speed and strength is a must, that IMO is a little worrying. What do you think?
But as i say in general i think he has done a good job and it will be very interesting this summer when he`s got a bit more money at his disposal, then there will be no excuses about not being able to get his first choise, as i say very interesting.

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