Football The (bacon) General Forum Football Thread.

[Aoami]

Ah, but I was a supporter in 1987, the last time this happened - and strangely the club did OK after that.





Can you tell me the lottery numbers next weekend please?

4,7,13,32,33,41. Bonus ball 11.

 

[Trem]

Rafael Benitez's job as Liverpool manager is safe for now because the club cannot afford to sack him. The Spaniard has four and a half years to run on the £4.5m-a-season contract he signed in March, so sacking him could cost about £20m.

I did think he may be ok because how would they afford a new manager or even tempt one with the lack of spending money.

 

[cHodAX]

something I know a lot about considering I had almost all my ankle ligaments on both sides replaced last year (not fun).

Ouch sorry to hear that bud, that is a very nasty injury. Hope it is healing ok.

 

[cHodAX]

CBA getting into the spend thing again. Suffice to say if you remove Ronaldo from that equation, realise that Fergie's "maintaining" and Rafa's "building", and add both Tottingham and City to the list you'll find that Rafa's doing very well on scant resource.

With the exceptions of Torres and Alonso he's been buying 3rd or 4th choice players.

That is pure deflection bud, City's spending has all occured in a 12-18 month period because they had a massive cash injection. Spuds were spending very little until a couple of years ago and have recouped good money on sales as well. My point holds, Rafa has pissed away £242 million and only made a couple of bigtime signings with all that cash, as Mickey Quinn rightly said on Talksport after the CL defeat 'Rafa is finally being undone by his scattergun approach to signings where he buys lots of very ordinary players and a couple of good ones. He has consistently wasted money for 5 years and now LFC are at a point where the money has run out, he has to go.'

 

[Lethul]

AQUAMAN!

Aquilani touches on debut

He's alive!

 

[Scouse]

Ouch sorry to hear that bud, that is a very nasty injury. Hope it is healing ok.

Yep. I had them done after I'd recovered from fucking my knee ligaments wakeboarding!

I stopped all the punishing physiotherapy the day the physio went "yep, they're at least as good as a normal person's now".

Then I got fat again

 

[Scouse]

That is pure deflection bud

I disagree.

Leave just Ronaldo (exceptional money) and Man City out of those figures then.

You'll find that on a budget that was less than United (who already had a winning team that Fergie only needed to maintain), Chelski's and (surprisingly) Tottenham (lol), Rafa's had less to spend to rebuild an entire team from scratch (apart from Gerrard and Carra).

In that time he's won a CL, FA Cup and been in a few other finals, and finished second behind Utd.

In my book that's a very good return on investment, considering he's only twice been able to spend £20 million on his players. Even then, Aquilani is 3rd choice buy, considering he desparately wanted Villa or Silva.

 

[Scouse]

Aquilani touches on debut

Nice. Considering he only got 10 minutes that's not 3 bad.

Admittedly, it was only a reserve match but he did show good positional sense and a nice range of passing.

Pressure on the poor lad to perform straight off is going to be unbelievable.

 

[cHodAX]

I disagree.

Leave just Ronaldo (exceptional money) and Man City out of those figures then.

You'll find that on a budget that was less than United (who already had a winning team that Fergie only needed to maintain), Chelski's and (surprisingly) Tottenham (lol), Rafa's had less to spend to rebuild an entire team from scratch (apart from Gerrard and Carra).

In that time he's won a CL, FA Cup and been in a few other finals, and finished second behind Utd.

In my book that's a very good return on investment, considering he's only twice been able to spend £20 million on his players. Even then, Aquilani is 3rd choice buy, considering he desparately wanted Villa or Silva.

Nope, if you disregard the Ronaldo fee then we spent £120 million or so, that is half what Rafa has spent and we would still have Ronaldo!

Regardless, we have spent less and done more. Yes we were maintaining a squad not building one but be fair, we had to replace Beckham/Keane/Barthez/Yorke/Cole for a start. Also Rafa inherited a side that went on to win the Champion's League the following season so in many ways he already had a winning side. Unfortunately for him he then set about dismantling it or replacing good players with ones that were mediocre at best. That is his failing bud, he has pissed away £240 million and only bought a handful of decent players who have managed to win nothing in 3 years.

Oh and he has only spent over £20 million a few times because he blew the rest on £8 million donkeys. He still spent the money, you cannot deny he has spent a shade under a quarter of a billion pounds Scouse.

 

[DaGaffer]

I disagree.

Leave just Ronaldo (exceptional money) and Man City out of those figures then.

You'll find that on a budget that was less than United (who already had a winning team that Fergie only needed to maintain), Chelski's and (surprisingly) Tottenham (lol), Rafa's had less to spend to rebuild an entire team from scratch (apart from Gerrard and Carra).

In that time he's won a CL, FA Cup and been in a few other finals, and finished second behind Utd.

In my book that's a very good return on investment, considering he's only twice been able to spend £20 million on his players. Even then, Aquilani is 3rd choice buy, considering he desparately wanted Villa or Silva.

I'd question the "rebuild an entire team from scratch" bit. Liverpool have gone from being routinely in 5th place under Houlier (with one second) to routinely in 4th place under Benitez (with one second). Now that's an important step, because it brings in CL money, but its still not particularly impressive compared to say, Wenger (who's managed similar levels of performance with far less). Sure they got a European Cup, but ironically that was with Houlier's players in the main. So just because Benitez decided to completely rebuild, doesn't mean that was his only option; and in choosing that option, he's not been particularly good at it.

As I said in an earlier post, if his spending had brought the Premiership, it would be justified, and because of that, United's spending, and Chelsea's, is justified, Liverpool's isn't. Arguing about 10m here or there is irrelevant.

 

[Scouse]

Yer figures are innacurate lads. In order of money it's Chelski>Utd>Tottenham>Liverpool.

His record in the league is 5th (old team), 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd I think?

He's spent £20 million twice, including Aquilani (not "over" 20 mill). The reason he's had to buy 8 million donkeys is because he can't afford to buy a quality player and someone else. Just the quality OR someone else. And even then he's been having to sell.

He certainly can't afford to spend, say £29 million on a dodgy defender like Rio

 

[cHodAX]

Yer figures are innacurate lads. In order of money it's Chelski>Utd>Tottenham>Liverpool.

His record in the league is 5th (old team), 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd I think?

He's spent £20 million twice, including Aquilani (not "over" 20 mill). The reason he's had to buy 8 million donkeys is because he can't afford to buy a quality player and someone else. Just the quality OR someone else. And even then he's been having to sell.

He certainly can't afford to spend, say £29 million on a dodgy defender like Rio

Those figures are on the money bud or very very close to it, Talksport have been quoting them for 2 days now and they would be at risk of legal action if they were fabricated. Here is the document with all the transfers...

http://utv.vo.llnwd.net/o16/Doc/Stats.doc


As for the donkeys, he has bought alot of them, infact Liverpool have gone through twice as many transfers as United in the same period. He bought cheaper players who never delivered, we spent more on the likes of Carrick but in return we got trophies. What we didn't do was buy a load of ordinary players who contributed nothing to the squad effort, even our less than stellar players like O'Shea and Brown make half a dozen vital contributions every season if not more. The same cannot be said for 80% of that Liverpool squad and that is the whole problem, too many players just not good enough to play for a great club like Liverpool.

Hell, you can say I am wrong but are Hansen, Lawrenson, Houghton, Barnes, Collymore and Mickey Quinn? They have all said exactly what I have said, he has not spent that £240 million wisely.

 

[Scouse]

I could dig up a few different websites with different figures. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to be at risk of legal action for gossiping about football.

I agree, he's bought a lot of chod. Robbie Keane for example. Oh, I'm sorry, Rafa didn't buy him.

He's never had the ability to sign, using your example, a Carrick, and then another quality player. We'd not have Aquilani if it wasn't for the forced sale of Alonso (who was class, especially for 12 million eh?).

He got the money for Johnson this summer, then the rest had to come from sales. Sales of players he's made a profit on (hence the high turnover, it's part of the business plan). He never recieved the 18 million we got from reselling Keane to Tottenham. That was pocketed by the owners...

Either way. He's not getting the sack. Not even if he loses to the mancs this weekend

 

[Lethul]

Myth: Benítez has spent £250m.

Truth: The current squad costs £140m, with four rival squads currently costing in excess of £200m. Benítez has spent a lot if you ignore how he’s had to sell players to buy better ones, making profits on many of his signings to reinvest. Sissoko led to Mascherano, Bellamy to Torres, and Crouch, indirectly (due to transfer fees owed), to Johnson. Surely the only gauge is what the current squad costs, as a manager will almost always put every penny available to him into the set up.

Ronnie Whelan said on Irish TV last month that the Liverpool eleven sent out to face Debrecen cost £250m. How many people will believe that? Quite a few, unfortunately.

It actually cost £78m. In what other profession would an “expert” get away with such utter mindless bollocks? Great player, but a total fool of a pundit. It’s a bit like a film critic claiming that a low budget indie film cost more to make than Titanic; he’d lose his job and credibility in an instant.

What’s clearly true is that Benítez has never been able to get anywhere near the British transfer record, whereas someone like Alex Ferguson has smashed it several times.

What’s also true is that the more Benítez has spent on a player, the better on average the signing has proven to be; but the majority of his signings have been due to a compromise of one kind or another, and many of his main targets were deemed too expensive, even though players like Alves and Simao would not have cost even half of the British transfer record (and both went on to be sold for far higher fees, suggesting they were the ‘real deal’). There is no doubt that Chelsea and Manchester United could have afforded these two players, and that was a key difference; instead of Simao, Benítez only had enough money for Pennant.

Liverpool also lag seriously behind in terms of wage bill, and a club’s wage bill heavily correlates to success; in other words, 90% of the time the biggest payers win the prizes. Transfer fees can be arbitrary, but only the richest clubs can afford to keep a large group of top players on the payroll.

http://tomkinstimes.com/2009/10/the-benitez-myths-series/

 

[Embattle]

*Starts snoring while reading usual defensive drival*

 

[Darthshearer]

Past tense on the money tho - its basically run out - he has given Babel a lot of chances over the past season or so but he never really performs.

Eh?

Hes spent £40m this summer on two players?!?!?!?

One of them only just played ina reserve match this week.

 

[rynnor]

Eh?

Hes spent £40m this summer on two players?!?!?!?

One of them only just played ina reserve match this week.

Heh yeah - tbh I didnt realise he had spent any money from the lack of new players actually playing

 

[Darthshearer]

I think his buys this close season have been poor (granted we havent seen one yet). They have not yet replacedtheir best player last season (Alonso) and they rely too much on Torress and Steeeeeeeeeeeeeevie Geeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

[Scouse]

Ronnie Whelan said on Irish TV last month that the Liverpool eleven sent out to face Debrecen cost £250m. How many people will believe that? Quite a few, unfortunately.

Well, he was a footballer, not a mathematician

 

[Scouse]

Liverpool also lag seriously behind in terms of wage bill, and a club’s wage bill heavily correlates to success; in other words, 90% of the time the biggest payers win the prizes. Transfer fees can be arbitrary, but only the richest clubs can afford to keep a large group of top players on the payroll

And this segues nicely into the anti capitalist thread.

If Liverpool can't afford to be successful then who the fuck can eh?

 

[Scouse]

Eh?

Hes spent £40m this summer on two players?!?!?!?

One of them only just played ina reserve match this week.

He spent 17 million on Johnson and hit the money wall. He was then forced to sell Alonso, for 30 million. He got 20 million of that to spend on Aquilani...

 

[Scouse]

I think his buys this close season have been poor (granted we havent seen one yet).

Johnson's a great signing. I'm very very happy with him.

 

[Bodhi]

That's how much of a force Liverfool are these days, they're happy with Chelsea rejects

 

[Trem]

After watching Liverpool today it made me remember some of Rafa's signings. Mascherano, Benayoun, Reina, Skrtel, Kuyt and Johnson are all fantastic players, Mascherano especially. Johnson looked a bloody good defender today as well and I haven't seen many better goalkeepers in the Premier league than Reina. Awwww *fluffles Rafa*

Also even with Fergie time they have beaten (actually trounced in every part of the pitch) Utd which is fucking great in my books

 

[Scouse]

Yep. He's crap that Lucas. Yes indeedy. I wish we had someone like Paul Scholes to bring on

 

[Talivar]

Rafa sent Roman his bday present , thank you liverpool!

 

[Darthshearer]

I didnt see the match at all, but I hear Carra was lucky not to be sent off?

 

[Trem]

I didnt see the match at all, but I hear Carra was lucky not to be sent off?

Nah I thought yellow was justified and right, it wasn't clear enough for the ref to see and at speed it looked like 6 of one....., wasn't Vidic already booked thats why he got sent off? Can't remember if he was or not though tbh.

 

[Gray]

Looking at the first yellow card Vidic got did seem a bit harsh as he was challenging for the ball against Torres, the second one though definately did seem like it could have been a straight red.

Macherano's tackle on VdS was needless too dont know why he attempted it. Carragher certainly got some lucky inch perfect tackles in at times, think the first one was against Carrick where he just managed to get some of the ball and a lot of Carrick, luckily for them at least the ref seen it right.

The yellow card could have gone either way in his struggle with Owen, but it may have been again slightly harsh to send him off for it...

Liverpool and Man Utd are so annoying playing each other, its always of some relative importance and yet Man Utd just roll over and die when they play them.

 

[Embattle]

Looking at the first yellow card Vidic got did seem a bit harsh as he was challenging for the ball against Torres, the second one though definately did seem like it could have been a straight red.

I kind of suspect it wasn't for the original tackle but the one after the ref had blown.