by Owzat » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:17 am
I am compiling some stats about the Liverpool squads, transfer values etc. I haven't quite finished, I'd like to go back beyond Dalglish's reign to build up a picture of the values of players he and Souness in particular had available.
But so far it looks like this, more or less complete for players signed by each with little scope for major change :-
Benitez : 52 signings, £204.450m (Average £3.932m, 10.4 signings per season)
Houllier : 49 signings, £119.300m (Average £2.435m, 8.2 signings per season)
Evans : 22 signings, £40.900m (Average £1.859m, 5.5 signings per season)
Souness : 15 signings, £18.625m (Average £1.242m, 4.3 signings per season)
Dalglish : 20 signings, £11.160m (Average £588k, 3.6 signings per season)
"Signings" include youth team players who made first team appearances under each manager - or signed a contract if you like. It is noticable that the number of signings per season has increased as well as the money spent, the latter you would expect as fees are much different these days.
Record Fee
Benitez : £21m Torres
Houllier : £14m Cisse/£11m Heskey (depends how you view Cisse's signing)
Evans : £8.5m Collymore
Souness : £2.9m Saunders
Dalglish : £2.8m Rush
So a definite shift in record fees, Souness and Dalglish in the most comparable eras but then you can see how the cost of strikers has increased, albeit Torres is far and away the best striker of our modern era signings. Newcastle bought Alan Shearer for £15m, just 12 months after we signed Collymore for £8.5m
Signings Per Season (excluding Youth)
Benitez : 9.2
Houllier : 6.5
Evans : 4.0
Souness : 3.7
Dalglish : 3.3
Further emphasises the way football has changed, a lot more focus on squad with more subs allowed etc. Some will be down to trying to find the right players in the quest for the elusive Premiership. It's a significant difference if you also take into account the advent of transfer windows, you can buy players only a few months a year nowadays.
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