I was thinking about how Gerrard, Hyypia, Carragher, Alonso and Reina have been here ages and are among our better players. So I thought it would be interesting to order the squad by date signed and see if anything interesting came out of it.
Top 10 Liverpool Players (08/09 Apps In Brackets)
01. 01/08/94 Jamie Carragher (39)
02. 01/08/98 Steven Gerrard (33)
03. 18/05/99 Sami Hyypia (16)
04. 01/08/04 Xabi Alonso (34)
05. 04/07/05 Jose "Pepe" Reina (36)
06. 12/01/06 Daniel Agger (18)
07. 05/07/06 Fabio Aurelio (23)
08. 26/07/06 Jermaine Pennant (4) - out on loan
09. 18/08/06 Dirk Kuyt (36)
10. 01/10/06 Nabil El Zhar (13)
11. 31/01/07 Alvaro Arbeloa (32)
11. 31/01/07 Javier Mascherano (25)
13. 01/07/07 Leiva Lucas (25)
13. 01/07/07 Charles Itandje (0)
13. 01/07/07 Andrei Voronin (0) - on loan
16. 04/07/07 Fernando Torres (26)
17. 12/07/07 Yossi Benayoun (30)
18. 13/07/07 Ryan Babel (31)
19. 01/08/07 Emilo Insua (7)
20. 31/08/07 Damien Plessis (5)
21. 11/01/08 Martin Skrtel (19)
22. 03/07/08 Phillipe Degen (2)
23. 04/07/08 Andrea Dossena (23)
24. 11/07/08 Diego Cavalieri (4)
25. 24/07/08 David N'Gog (11)
26. 31/08/08 Albert Riera (31)
Maybe just a list, but most of our best players/1st choice XI fall in the top 12 and were signed by end of 2007 January transfer window.
05. Reina
11. Arbeloa
07. Aurelio
01. Carragher
CB
09. Kuyt
LM
04. Alonso
11. Mascherano
02. Gerrard
CF
Missing Skrtel, Torres and Riera from our best XI. So most of our best XI weren't signed in the last two years, yet we've signed plenty of 1st team squad players in that period and spent a lot of time criticising a fair few of them - Keane, Babel, Lucas, Dossena and Voronin in particular. Cavalieri and Itandje don't play so much so they're not quite so heavily slated other than for their purchase. Leto has yet to play for us in competitive football, Degen has played twice and got injured twice or maybe he'd be mentioned more. I think it's fair to say a lot of signings in the past two signings have not impressed members of this forum, one or two of the better ones have.
Another interesting stat is the split involving seasons
Signed
Up to 05/06 : 5 players, 158 appearances (31.60 average)
06/07 : 5 players, 94 appearances (19.00 average)
07/08 : 11 players, 200 appearances (18.00 average)
08/09 : 5 players, 68 appearances (14.00 average*)
*Excludes Keane who would raise the average to 16.00 if included
Bear in mind Babel, Benayoun and Torres were signed in 07/08 so account for 87 of those 200 appearances. Riera accounts for nearly half the appearances made by players signed this season, Dossena most of the rest. If you split it in a slightly different way then it shows up how ordinary a lot of recent signings have been, with the odd exception of course :-
Top Five Long Serving : 5 players, 158 appearances (32.00 average)
Kuyt/Torres/Riera : 3 players, 93 appearances (31.00 average)
Everyone Else : 16 players, 265 appearances (17.00 average)
Note that Kuyt was signed 06/07, Torres 07/08 and Riera 08/09. I've excluded loanees Pennant and Voronin from the "Everyone Else" category. The eight split out into the top two categories aren't enough to make an XI, so the rest were bound to make a lot of appearances between them to make an XI plus subs. We've played 40 games this season, those five oldest serving players have played 80% between them, lowered by Hyypia playing less these days or it would be 35.50 average and therefore around 89% of all games this season.
I can't be bothered to find out how to add a quick graph I did of the order signed against appearances made, but the trendline dips from around 29 at the right to around 12 on the left ie indicates the longer serving the more appearances made - and quite significantly so by a dip of around 17.