Liverpool FC Forum

[Reg]

We failed to land a striker not thru lack of trying, we went after CC, Zamora, Pavelwhatshisname etc.. so we WERE trying.

Just we couldnt get them to accept the Rapster in exchange.

[Redangel]

Found this on the Telegraph website today. Interesting to see the ins and outs this transfer window laid out .

LIVERPOOL

IN

Raul Meireles        Porto               £11.5m


Christian Poulsen  Juventus           £4.5m rising to £5.5m


Paul Konchesky    Fulham              £4m + swap


Brad Jones         Middlesbrough      £2.3m


Danny Wilson     Rangers               £2m


Jonjo Shelvey    Charlton Athletic   £1.7m


Iaia Embarlo       Oldham Athletic   £25,000


Joe Cole            Chelsea              Free


Milan Jovanovic   Standard Liege    Free


Suso                FC Cadiz              Undisclosed


Adam Hajdu        MTK Budapest      Season Loan

OUT



Javier Mascherano           Barcelona     £22m rising to £26m


Yossi Benayoun               Chelsea       £5m


Albert Riera          Olympiacos     £3.37m


Kristian Nemeth         Olympiacos       £1m


Diego Cavalieri          Cesena     Undisclosed


Mikel San Jose      Athletic Bilbao     Undisclosed


James Ellison       BurtonAlbion     Free


David Martin       Milton Keynes Dons     Free


Ray Putterill         Accrington Stanley  Free




Robbie Threlfall       Bradford City      Free


Lauri Dalla Valle     Fulham     Swap


Alex Kacaniklic       Fulham     Swap


Albert Aquilani       Juventus     Season Loan


Philipp Degen        Stuttgart      Season Loan


Emeliano Insua       Galatasaray    Season Loan


Francisco Manuel Durán     Released

Christopher Oldfield           Released [B]

[maypaxvobiscum]

who is Embarlo?

[OneHotRed]

I think its dierdries son

[burjennio]

I think its dierdries son

had to read it twice!

[lakes10]

find it strange that going by ssn no monet has yet been passed over for the Javier Mascherano deal?
i know in truth there no money handed over but they said that we could not use the deal money as it was still being held by them?

[LFC2007]

I think its dierdries son

had to read it twice!

[roberto green]

[fivecups]

PL squads 2010, for comparison

Arsenal: Manuel Almunia, Andrei Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner, Marouane Chamakh, Gael Clichy, Denilson, Abou Diaby, Johan Djourou, Emmanuel Eboue, Lukasz Fabianski, Cesc Fabregas, Laurent Koscielny, Vito Mannone, Samir Nasri, Tomas Rosicky, Bacary Sagna, Alex Song, Robin van Persie, Thomas Vermaelen, Sebastien Squillaci. (Arsenal can also use young players including: Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Carlos Vela, Emmanuel Frimpong, Aaron Ramsey.)

Aston Villa: Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan, James Collins, Carlos Cuellar, Curtis Davies, Habib Beye, Richard Dunne, Eric Lichaj, Stephen Warnock, Luke Young, Stewart Downing, Jonathan Hogg, Stephen Ireland, Isaiah Osbourne, Stiliyan Petrov, Nigel Reo-Coker, Moustapha Salifou, Steve Sidwell, Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor, John Carew, Emile Heskey. (Villa can also use: Marc Albrighton, Nathan Delfouneso, Barry Bannan, Ciaran Clark and Fabian Delph).

Chelsea: Petr Cech, Henrique Hilario, Ross Turnbull, Branislav Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, Jose Bosingwa, Paulo Ferreira, Yuri Zhirkov, John Terry, Alex, Michael Essien, Ramires, John Obi Mikel, Frank Lampard, Yossi Benayoun, Florent Malouda, Salomon Kalou, Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba. (Chelsea can also use: Patrick van Aanholt, Jeffrey Bruma, Josh McEachran, Gael Kakuta, Daniel Sturridge, Fabio Borini).

NB: Chelsea have only 19 senior players over 21

Liverpool: Daniel Agger, Fabio Aurelio, Ryan Babel, Milan Jovanovic, Dirk Kuyt, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Lucas Leiva, Raul Meireles, Christian Poulsen, Pepe Reina, Maxi Rodriguez, Martin Skrtel, Fernando Torres, Jamie Carragher, Joe Cole, Stephen Darby, Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Brad Jones, Paul Konchesky, Jay Spearing . (Liverpool can also use: Peter Gulacsi, Martin Kelly, Daniel Wilson, Jonjo Shelvey, Daniel Pacheco, Nathan Eccleston and David Ngog)

Manchester City: Shay Given, Joe Hart, Stuart Taylor, Jerome Boateng, Wayne Bridge, Aleksander Kolarov, Vincent Kompany, Joleon Lescott, Shaleum Logan, Micah Richards, Kolo Toure, Pablo Zabaleta, Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong, Adam Johnson, Michael Johnson, James Milner, David Silva, Yaya Toure, Patrick Vieira, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Emmanuel Adebayor, Jo, Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez. (City can also use: Mario Balotelli, Dedryck Boyata, Greg Cunningham, Abdi Ibrahim and Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely.)

Manchester United: Darren Fletcher, Tomasz Kuszczak, Darron Gibson, Edwin van der Sar, Ryan Giggs, Wes Brown, Owen Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson, Park Ji-Sung, Jonathan Evans, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Antonio Valencia, Gary Neville, Dimitar Berbatov, John O'Shea, Javier Hernandez, Nemanja Vidic, Michael Carrick, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney. (United can also use: Ben Amos, Fabio, Rafael, Ritchie De Laet, Gabriel Obertan, Bebe, Chris Smalling, Federico Macheda).

Tottenham: Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Sebastian Bassong, David Bentley, Vedran Corluka, Peter Crouch, Carlo Cudicini, Heurelho Gomes, Michael Dawson, Jermain Defoe, William Gallas, Tom Huddlestone, Alan Hutton, Jermaine Jenas, Younes Kaboul, Robbie Keane, Ledley King, Niko Kranjcar, Aaron Lennon, Luka Modric, Kyle Naughton, Jamie O'Hara, Wilson Palacios, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Stipe Pletikosa, Rafael van der Vaart. (Spurs can also use young players including: Gareth Bale, Giovanni Dos Santos, Sandro, Kyle Walker, John Bostock, Dean Parrett, Danny Rose.)

[fivecups]

Tomkins.


It’s one thing Alex Ferguson misleading the press about the plight of Liverpool Football Club, quite another them lapping it up like suckling pups. Of course, not that you’d expect a lot more from the worst breed of hacks with their pre-set narrative.
Blaming Rafa Benítez for the financial implosion rather than the Reds’ hated owners is a low blow, even by his standards in verbal scraps with the Spaniard.
My new book – which looks in great detail at the correlation between spending and success in the Premier League era – heaps plenty of praise onto Ferguson, amongst others whom I wouldn’t invite to my fantasy dinner party. It heaps praise on him because, despite my known allegiances to Liverpool, the numbers from our research often speak for themselves.
While I obviously provide extended analysis, it is done with my neutral hat firmly donned, as was the case with my co-authors, Graeme Riley and Gary Fulcher. We respect the research, not personal preferences. On top of this, esteemed writers and bloggers associated with all 43 clubs to play in the top flight between 1992 and 2010 were invited to study the data and provide their insight for their club’s section of the book.
Crammed within “Pay As You Play” are many types of analysis, all based around the ‘true’ cost of teams and squads over the past 18 years. After all, this is a book based on the Transfer Price Index, which Graeme and I devised as a way of comparing on equal terms a transfer in 1993, for example, with one from 2007.
Spending £10m at a time when it’s not a lot of money is different to spending £10m in an era when it is. Equally, spending £10m in a depressed market, when transfer fees are generally lower and few clubs are splashing the cash, means it is more, in real terms, than £10m spent in an inflated market, when everyone else is paying similar figures.
Having first calculated ‘football inflation’ in the same way economists determine the Retail Price Index (except we used a ‘basket’ of every single footballer bought and sold each season, rather than grocery produce; although a few rotten eggs were still included), we could apply it to all manner of ideas and analyses far too numerous to detail here. Some of football’s most renowned thinkers (none of them Liverpool fans) have expressed their fascination with the project, so we feel we’re on the right track.
An absolutely key finding – the one that tallied most closely with league success or failure – was the average cost of a club’s XI (with inflation taken into account) over the course of a season: for the purposes of the book, called its ‘£XI’.
We did the same with squads (Sq£), and while that also plays a part, success or failure more often comes down to how much of a club’s purchased talent actually makes it onto the pitch throughout a campaign. (Either because money was badly spent on useless squad players, and/or because key signings were out injured.)
In essence, it is the financial weight a club punches that season; and success can be rated ‘pound for pound’.
And talking of weight, all managers had their figures presented first in their actual form, and then ‘weighted’ against the averages for the level of attainment they reached. We even managed to calculate the cost, in millions, of every point won, including the differences at various levels of the table. So it’s not the fashionable or most lauded managers who necessarily come out top.
Now of course, not every eventuality can be taken into account, and we are not saying that other factors do not play a role; clearly they do. But most of these are also discussed in full in the book, in a way that can’t be done here. Age, tactics, motivation, crazy chairmen: these are not ignored.
It’s fair to say that when managers buy players they often sell players at the same time. Gross spends are usually misleading, but even a net figure doesn’t explain the starting point; after all, Carlo Ancelotti hasn’t spent that much in comparison to Jose Mourinho because he inherited a side that was already a well-oiled machine, with a deep squad behind it, whereas managers have taken over at other clubs and been unable to see the deadwood for the dying trees.
Some of the measures in “Pay As You Play” show that, on plenty of occasions, Alex Ferguson’s success was earned rather than bought. Other parts of the study highlight the inspired work of people like Sam Allardyce and David Moyes at certain points during the past decade; real achievements in certain seasons given their budgets. As a Liverpool fan, I do not love these men. It’s not my life’s ambition to make them look good. But I’m happy to praise their work where praise is due, and to verify with fans of those clubs that the approach taken is fair.
However, none of our research shows Rafa Benítez to be anything approaching the root of Liverpool’s financial problems in the past few years, in the manner Ferguson suggests. Indeed, it shows a job well done by the Spaniard, based not on my bias but on the cold hard facts. Benítez does not come out top in any of the numerous categories, but he is consistently one of the better performers.
What the research does show – in crystal clear form – is that Liverpool were never more financially adrift of Manchester United in terms of £XI and Sq£ than during the past six years. Indeed, it clearly points to an expensive Liverpool team in the ‘90s performing well below expected levels, with the Reds growing increasingly poor in relation to other big clubs.
In current prices, the Liverpool squad of the past couple of years did not cost much more than that from the early to mid-‘90s; and yet all big clubs have had a greater number of players in their squads since the turn of the millennium. Relatively speaking, therefore, it is far less expensive in its assemblage.
Also, the ‘90s blessed the Reds with their best crop of youngsters (ditto United). And yet, despite these ‘free’ players, results remained below par. (Wages play a role too, and that is discussed in the book. However, we feel that, overall, the £XI is vital.)
Roy Evans invested badly in several instances, and didn’t sign any outstanding players; but he did get the team playing some highly watchable football, and got within the ballpark of the title. The problem, as I clearly outlined in “Dynasty”, was Souness. Although a different, more scientific form of analysis is used for “Pay As You Play”, the result is the same. It all comes back to Souness.
(It’s also true that Kenny Dalglish’s purchasing, post Hillsborough, was not up to his usual standards, and the squad was getting old. But that does not mean that Souness, when handed a fortune in today’s money, can be excused such awful use of it.)
On the whole, with just a young few gems (Fowler, McManaman and Rob Jones), Souness bequeathed Evans a collection of expensive misfits, and the club have not recovered since. When Jamie Carragher recently said that it was Souness and not Ferguson who knocked the Reds of their ‘ perch’, he could well have been quoting from “Dynasty”. This is now confirmed in “Pay As You Play”.
Liverpool entered the Premier League era with a more expensive squad than any other club. Bear that in mind at all times. That’s where the money went.
But recently, in real terms, the Reds have been cut well adrift of three über-squads (Chelsea, City and United), and even lag a long way behind Spurs.
Despite a less expensive squad, United, in winning the inaugural Premier League title, fielded the most expensive XI on average; their £XI was £10m more than that of the Reds, in current prices. This is perhaps because by that stage Ferguson knew what he was doing in the transfer market, and with his team in general, and Souness didn’t.

The cost of the £XIs of both clubs change positions over the coming years in terms of whose was more expensive, but 1997/98 is when a gap starts to emerge in United’s favour. Success in the Premier League and money from the Champions League led to increased investment by Ferguson in his team. By 2000, most of Liverpool’s serious money had been spent.
The £XIs converge again around 2001, with United’s falling and Liverpool’s rising until they almost meet. What’s interesting is that this is the time when the Reds start to resemble a really good side again (winning the treble), and in 2002, with the gap still narrow, even finish above United in the league.
But then United widen the gap in 2003, and win the title; Liverpool are now in decline, with Houllier having blown his transfer budget on a series of duds from the French league. In 2003/04 the clubs are again closely matched in terms of £XI, but neither team is performing as well as it has in the past couple of seasons, although United are a long way ahead of the Reds in league points.
However, a real chasm then emerges. United absolutely blow Liverpool out of the water in terms of £XI and, to a slightly less dramatic degree, Sq£.
The year? None other than 2004/05, Benítez’s first.
Let’s be clear: pound for pound, Liverpool’s performance in 2008/09 was fairly incredible; one of the four best posted by the 36 top two sides in the past 18 years. (United and Arsenal, twice, complete the quartet; more on this, and the over-performance of other clubs in the book.) But of course, it wasn’t enough.
It was the closest the Reds have got to United in the past eight years, and the closest to the eventual champions in the Premier League era. What’s interesting is that it was the closest to that point in time that the two teams had been in terms of £XI during Benítez’s reign. But the Reds’ £XI of £96m was still a long way behind United’s £158m. That season, pound for pound, Liverpool performed better; but United just had too many pounds (and, of course, prior experience; there’s more on what it costs to win a ‘first’ title in the book).
And in terms of overall squad costs (Sq£), it’s a similar story. Liverpool’s collection of players were more expensive up until 1999. Since then, 2003 and 2004 are the only two occasions when the two have been remotely close, with United well ahead the rest of the time. If Benítez had wasted so much money, where did it go? – because the squad was not getting any more expensive. Yes, money was spent, but less than what was being recouped.

And the bad news for Roy Hodgson is that the gap, which had narrowed slightly in 2008, is now widening again; United have invested more this summer than the Reds, who, on the whole, have lost more talent than they’ve gained.
There’s a lot more of the good and bad of both clubs in the book, along with the successes and failures of the other 41 clubs in the Premier League up to the end of 2009/10. At the very least, we hope that it provides some food for thought, no matter who you support.

[fivecups]

[fivecups]

[fivecups]

lfchistory. Most expensive buys.


1  Fernando Torres  Atletico Madrid  £20,200,000  Rafael Benítez  04.07.2007
2 Robbie Keane Tottenham £19,000,000 Rafael Benítez 28.07.2008
3 Javier Mascherano Media Sports Investment £18,600,000 Rafael Benítez 29.02.2008
4 Glen Johnson Portsmouth £17,500,000 Rafael Benítez 26.06.2009
5 Alberto Aquilani AS Roma £17,100,000 Rafael Benítez 07.08.2009
6 Djibril Cissé Auxerre £14,500,000 Gerard Houllier 01.07.2004
7 Ryan Babel Ajax £11,500,000 Rafael Benítez 13.07.2007
8 Raul Meireles Porto £11,500,000 Roy Hodgson 29.08.2010
9 Emile Heskey Leicester £11,000,000 Gerard Houllier 10.03.2000
10 Xabi Alonso Real Sociedad £10,700,000 Rafael Benítez 20.08.2004
11 El Hadji Diouf Lens £10,000,000 Gerard Houllier 01.06.2002
12 Dirk Kuyt Feyenoord £9,000,000 Rafael Benítez 18.08.2006
13 Stan Collymore Nottm For £8,500,000 Roy Evans 01.07.1995
14 Dietmar Hamann Newcastle £8,000,000 Gerard Houllier 22.07.1999
15 Albert Riera Espanyol £8,000,000 Rafael Benítez 31.08.2008

[fivecups]

And sells;

1  Xabi Alonso  Real Madrid  £30,000,000  Rafael Benítez  05.08.2009
2 Javier Mascherano Barcelona £17,250,000 Roy Hodgson 30.08.2010
3 Robbie Keane Tottenham £16,000,000 Rafael Benítez 02.02.2009
4 Robbie Fowler Leeds United £12,750,000 Gerard Houllier 29.11.2001
5 Peter Crouch Portsmouth £11,000,000 Rafael Benítez 11.07.2008
6 Michael Owen Real Madrid £8,500,000 Rafael Benítez 14.08.2004
7 Mohamed Sissoko Juventus £8,200,000 Rafael Benítez 28.01.2008
8 Craig Bellamy West Ham £7,500,000 Rafael Benítez 10.07.2007
9 Stan Collymore Aston Villa £7,000,000 Roy Evans 13.05.1997
10 Milan Baros Aston Villa £6,500,000 Rafael Benítez 23.08.2005
11 Emile Heskey Birmingham £6,250,000 Gerard Houllier 18.05.2004
12 Djibril Cissé Marseille £6,000,000 Rafael Benítez 09.07.2007
13 Yossi Benayoun Chelsea £6,000,000 Rafael Benítez 02.07.2010
14 Dominic Matteo Leeds United £4,750,000 Gerard Houllier 18.08.2000
15 Andrea Dossena Napoli £4,700,000 Rafael Benítez 08.01.2010