Liverpool FC Forum

[Owzat]

We've got no money eh? No money is available for Rafa eh?

Keane £19m (rising to £20.3m)
Riera £8m
Dossena £7m
Cavalieri £3m
N'Gog £1.5m

Johnson £17.5m
Aquilani £20m

£76m in two summers of extravagant spending, perhaps our expectations are as artificially high as some of those transfer fees as we see other clubs spend, spend, spend and expect to spend as much ourselves. Ok some of those were funded out of sales, like Alonso and Keane being sold, but has the money been spent wisely? £17.5m on a RB is extravagant, spending like we're Chelsea or citeh but without the financial whack that they have to be able to spend like that. It would help if the buys were absolute top drawer, but are they in the same class of buy as Alonso for £10.5m, Kuyt for £10m, Benayoun for £5m, Arbeloa for £2.6m, Agger for £5.8m, Torres for £21m, Mascherano for £18.6m etc.......................? I think Rafa has got so wrapped up in some kind of big spending theory that he's lost control in the market. Some are getting bargains from clubs like pompey and Newcastle, we're getting shafted. Instead of signing Owen for free, we sign Aquilani for £20m and I think Owen's played more in the last five years! Maybe Arbeloa was on his way out anyway, but could we not have got as good a RB as Johnson cheaper? For £17.5m I'd want a World Class RB, not Johnson. All these extravagant spends, not that you'd think we'd spent more than a couple of million the way some go on, and the squad has barely been improved. And we've not brought in players where needed, a Sami replacement, a LWF come back-up striker and we've a serious problem now in midfield.

Not that Chelsea have put us under pressure with their win last night, three points is absolutely vital. Was anyone else watching the bbc interactive score service last night and as mystified by me as to why it said "Monday August 24th Liverpool vs Chelsea" as a forthcoming fixture?? I checked the BBC fixtures later and it says we're playing villa next Monday, nice one BBC!

[Igor Zidane]

We've got no money eh? No money is available for Rafa eh?

Keane £19m (rising to £20.3m)
Riera £8m
Dossena £7m
Cavalieri £3m
N'Gog £1.5m

Johnson £17.5m
Aquilani £20m

£76m in two summers of extravagant spending, perhaps our expectations are as artificially high as some of those transfer fees as we see other clubs spend, spend, spend and expect to spend as much ourselves. Ok some of those were funded out of sales, like Alonso and Keane being sold, but has the money been spent wisely? £17.5m on a RB is extravagant, spending like we're Chelsea or citeh but without the financial whack that they have to be able to spend like that. It would help if the buys were absolute top drawer, but are they in the same class of buy as Alonso for £10.5m, Kuyt for £10m, Benayoun for £5m, Arbeloa for £2.6m, Agger for £5.8m, Torres for £21m, Mascherano for £18.6m etc.......................? I think Rafa has got so wrapped up in some kind of big spending theory that he's lost control in the market. Some are getting bargains from clubs like pompey and Newcastle, we're getting shafted. Instead of signing Owen for free, we sign Aquilani for £20m and I think Owen's played more in the last five years! Maybe Arbeloa was on his way out anyway, but could we not have got as good a RB as Johnson cheaper? For £17.5m I'd want a World Class RB, not Johnson. All these extravagant spends, not that you'd think we'd spent more than a couple of million the way some go on, and the squad has barely been improved. And we've not brought in players where needed, a Sami replacement, a LWF come back-up striker and we've a serious problem now in midfield.

Not that Chelsea have put us under pressure with their win last night, three points is absolutely vital. Was anyone else watching the bbc interactive score service last night and as mystified by me as to why it said "Monday August 24th Liverpool vs Chelsea" as a forthcoming fixture?? I checked the BBC fixtures later and it says we're playing villa next Monday, nice one BBC!

oh alright then , we're telling porkies .Is that better ?

The figures in your post are so so wrong mate .

Come back to me when you have found out the true figures . Come back to me when you found out where .

The original £20 million he was told he was getting , plus

The keane money ,plus

Alonso , leto , hamill ,  can't remember who else's money  plus

The tv , cl , merchandising money .

£16 million for johnson  and £5 million for aqualiani upfront . Take alook at the figures again and come back to me !

[stmichael]

What's most worrying about this situation is the lack of activity that seems to be going on. OK that Kyrgiakos guy looks to be coming but thats a player bought for quantity and not quality. I'm worried that no moves appear to have been made for the positions we desperately need quality reinforcements, a winger and striker. I know papers are usually full of rubbish but we don't even seem to be linked with anyone half decent in these positions. How many times last season did we say, "If Torres was fit we would have won"? We missed out because of a lack of depth and without rectifying it we'll have to keep our fingers crossed regarding injuries if we stand a chance of winning the title.

[Lando_Griffin]

We've got no money eh? No money is available for Rafa eh?

Keane £19m (rising to £20.3m)
Riera £8m
Dossena £7m
Cavalieri £3m
N'Gog £1.5m

Johnson £17.5m
Aquilani £20m

£76m in two summers of extravagant spending, perhaps our expectations are as artificially high as some of those transfer fees as we see other clubs spend, spend, spend and expect to spend as much ourselves. Ok some of those were funded out of sales, like Alonso and Keane being sold, but has the money been spent wisely? £17.5m on a RB is extravagant, spending like we're Chelsea or citeh but without the financial whack that they have to be able to spend like that. It would help if the buys were absolute top drawer, but are they in the same class of buy as Alonso for £10.5m, Kuyt for £10m, Benayoun for £5m, Arbeloa for £2.6m, Agger for £5.8m, Torres for £21m, Mascherano for £18.6m etc.......................? I think Rafa has got so wrapped up in some kind of big spending theory that he's lost control in the market. Some are getting bargains from clubs like pompey and Newcastle, we're getting shafted. Instead of signing Owen for free, we sign Aquilani for £20m and I think Owen's played more in the last five years! Maybe Arbeloa was on his way out anyway, but could we not have got as good a RB as Johnson cheaper? For £17.5m I'd want a World Class RB, not Johnson. All these extravagant spends, not that you'd think we'd spent more than a couple of million the way some go on, and the squad has barely been improved. And we've not brought in players where needed, a Sami replacement, a LWF come back-up striker and we've a serious problem now in midfield.

Not that Chelsea have put us under pressure with their win last night, three points is absolutely vital. Was anyone else watching the bbc interactive score service last night and as mystified by me as to why it said "Monday August 24th Liverpool vs Chelsea" as a forthcoming fixture?? I checked the BBC fixtures later and it says we're playing villa next Monday, nice one BBC!

Shurrup you tit. We haven't spent anywhere near that - did you manage to miss all the clauses in the deals? Did you miss the fact that we recouped all but £1.5m on the Keane deal?

If you want to continue the Rafa-bashing, do it sensibly, eh?

[Bad Bob]

Maybe Arbeloa was on his way out anyway, but could we not have got as good a RB as Johnson cheaper? For £17.5m I'd want a World Class RB, not Johnson.

Yeah, on that, I think we'd struggle to find a world class right back that costs only 17.5 million pounds (leaving aside the 'Crouch discount,' which seems to have been a big factor in the deal but hey ho...).  Alves?  Rumour is that all the clauses in his contract will mean that Barcelona end up paying Sevilla something in the order of 40 million Euros for his services!!!  Maicon?  No way he'd come here for less than 20 million pounds, especially with Man City, Madrid and possibly Chelsea sniffing around.  Ramos?  Not a chance.  And so on and so on.  Bottom line: world class fullbacks cost considerably more than 17.5 million pounds in today's market and no amount of railing against transfer inflation will change that fact.

So, where does that leave us?  Well, it seems we have three options.  First, we can look for a real diamond in the rough.  A youngish, unheralded prospect that could be bought on the cheap abroad (suffice to say, even English prospects are not cheap) and groomed at Anfield.  On the plus side, Arbeloa proves it can work.  On the minus side, Josemi, Kromkamp and probably Degen as well also prove it can fail.  With Arbeloa looking to go back to Spain did we really want to gamble on a prospect for a position that is thin in numbers and vital to our whole set up?

The next strategy is to go up a step and pay more for a player that is starting to establish himself in a good overseas league and is knocking on the door of his national side (again, English players of this ilk are costly).  Well, we gave that a shot with Dossena didn't we and now know that paying more for an emerging player from Italy, in this case, is no guarantee of success.  This is not to say that all players of this ilk will do as poorly as Doss or that we shouldn't have done better in the scouting.  It is to say that paying a bit more for a more established foreign player is still a bit of a gamble.

So, that leaves the idea of shopping in England, where prices are outrageously inflated but where you can at least be assured that the player knows how to play in the league.  Problem is, you start to look around the league and you see that there aren't that many quality RBs available, which will simply drive the price up for those that are available.  So, if you're shopping in England in order to cut down on the 'will he adapt?' factor you are going to be paying top, top dollar--especially if you want a fullback that can contribute meaningfully to the attack (which we do).

[Calum]

Naturally, it's Benitez's fault that the squad is too thin. Too many average player signings, and too may good players going out. Look at the forwards. He sold Owen, Bellamy, Crouch, and Keane - all quality strikers. All we have now is Torres and a few mediocre players in reserve. I give up on Benitez. We are further away from winning the league.

[Tim LFC]

Haha wow! I thought Voronin didn't do to bad! And En'gog looks like he's improving. I would love to give Nemeth a chance though.

[Owzat]

Naturally, it's Benitez's fault that the squad is too thin. Too many average player signings, and too may good players going out. Look at the forwards. He sold Owen, Bellamy, Crouch, and Keane - all quality strikers. All we have now is Torres and a few mediocre players in reserve. I give up on Benitez. We are further away from winning the league.

The problem is he wants to spend around £20m on incoming players and we're not seeing many absolute bargains coming in whilst ditching other rubbish which raises little income. We lost Sami and Pennant for nothing with contracts expired, if we do sell Voronin we aren't looking likely to get more than £3m-£4m for him and we sell 1st team squad players like Arbeloa and Riise for around £4m while bringing in replacements for £7m and £17.5m.

So the moaning about lack of funds is inevitable as you can't sell players for say £5m average and bring £20m players in without the money coming from somewhere. We managed to buy Aquilani with the money from selling Alonso, but how often do we sell players for more than £10m? It's partly why I was not happy on the amount we spent on Johnson, a RB for £17.5m is silly when we supposedly don't have any money and other positions needed more attention. It isn't like Kuyt didn't weigh in with 12 league goals and something like 9 assists last season so the right side was pulling its weight. How many came from the left side? I think part of the problem is Rafa, and the fans are falling in line in terms of thinking, is thinking and spending outside of his means/budget.

It would be like me buying a second house, a new car, a new PC and laptop, two big and expensive HD TVs, subscribing to s*y and taking three holidays a year, then moaning about my employers not paying me enough! I know how much my employers pay me, I spend as I can afford. So instead of buying a spanking new Porsche as my second car, I buy a relatively cheap runabout car so I can spend (more) money on things I really need. Things are how they are, you make most of what you have except Rafa's spending seems to be outside of his budget and so our squad looks thin.

Maybe he should go bargain hunting then splash any cash he has remaining. I can't believe there are no bargains out there, I reckon since Rafa spent £18.6m on Mascherano, £21m on Torres, £20.3m on Keane and something like £60m in one season that he doesn't look anywhere else than at primary targets at whatever cost. Maybe he's spent so long away from Spain he's no longer able to land us bargains like Reina, Arbeloa and Alonso from La Liga. Just compare those three relatively early Rafa signings at £19.1m combined with some of his latter signings, allowing for some increase in the market for Arbeloa and Alonso of say 50% and tell me his spending hasn't become extravagant - even if you'd only admit to a slight extravagance.

[FuzzyBear]

The buck stops with Rafa Benitez, if the squad is too thin and the first team is found lacking in top drawer talent, then it's Benitez's fault. Benitez has spent 5 seasons at Liverpool and the same debate is still raging. If we fail this season, then he should be sacked and a replacement found.

[stmichael]

It's too early for me to tell if we are stronger or weaker than last year. Certainly we are more of an attacking minded side than last year. Whether this makes us stronger remains to be seen through results. I believe we should be stronger now if Johnson plays well and Aquiliani lives up to expectations.

[Reg]

Its very easy to be critical of Rafa, everything on the field eventually boils back to him.

Off the field however is a different issue. Where didn he Keane money go when we sold him people ask - repaying the loan we took out buying him. Where did the transfer budget go this year - repaying the club debt to enable the RBS loan to be renewed. Where did any spare cash go - extending contracts of Nando, SG, Yossi, Agger etc.. clearing out the Academy staff, bringing in new management there, employing a new Managing Director, budget for a new CEO, paying off Parry for half a million, plus of course paying for Rafa´s new contract. Where did Xabi´s transfer money go? Johnson, Waterbaby and the Greek.

These are the constraints that Rafa has been under year after year. Its par for the course at the moment though as ManUre, the other heavily leveraged club sold Queerboy and what happened to that money? At least we´re not holding onto an expensive plum like Berbatov ffs.

So I always hestitate before blaming Rafa because if it was so easy the Roy Evans would still be in the job. If it was THAT easy, I´d be doing it........

[Zidane]

I love our team and we're so much better than we have been in what, 19 years maybe?  That sounds about rightish.  No complaints here I think I'm becoming one of those In Rafa We Trust 'drones'.

[Calum]

I love our team and we're so much better than we have been in what, 19 years maybe?  That sounds about rightish.  No complaints here I think I'm becoming one of those In Rafa We Trust 'drones'.

Are you still of the same opinion after tonight's performance?

[Zidane]

I love our team and we're so much better than we have been in what, 19 years maybe?  That sounds about rightish.  No complaints here I think I'm becoming one of those In Rafa We Trust 'drones'.

Are you still of the same opinion after tonight's performance?

I didn't quite see it but no Riera AND no Xabi makes our midfield look as if it weren't already kinda bad without Xabi.. why hasn't Riera been playing?  He's a key player.

[JohnBull]

You were lucky if you didn't see it. Lucas with the best header he's done since he came here, no one on the post for a corner, as usual, and a clear pen.
We are missing players, not for what they did but for what they didn't do - make stupid mistakes. The stats from Alonso last year were nothing special but he rarely made mistakes. Lucas ? hasn't got a clue! Voronin ? it's like Jaws 2 - Just when you thought it safe to go back in the water !
Raffa,as ever, is a fryggyn mystery to me, same old same old.
Hang on to your seats this season it's going to be a rough one. It's common knowledge he's lost most of the dressing room already and I can't see it getting better.