Are Liverpool ( and Rafa ) done? *Haters Gonna Hate

CHD

Ush1 wrote: »

*sigh*
You haven't answered my question either genius, how have I "failed" the mighty CHD test exactly??
Have a dig, at who exactly pray tell?

You > Everyone learned from Sheva transfer.
Me > Go on, share your genius with us and explain.
You > eh, eh, Henry and Trezeguet blah blah actually I dunno what I am on about.
Me > You fail.
You > Wat, I totally asked you something. Im here for deep discussion obv.

Bottom line is your talking out your arse. Nobody learned from the Sheva transfer. United paid £30M for Berbatov (lol). Madrid bought Alonso and Benzema for £25M each. Adebayor went for around £25M. Look at the Ibrahimovic transfer. Kaka 57M, Tevez 47M.

Chelsea learned Sheva wasn't worth it, that is about it.

EDIT - Liverpool. Now it has a place here.

Ush1

CHD wrote: »

You > Everyone learned from Sheva transfer.
Me > Go on, share your genius with us and explain.
You > eh, eh, Henry and Trezeguet blah blah actually I dunno what I am on about.
Me > You fail.
You > Wat, I totally asked you something. Im here for deep discussion obv.

Bottom line is your talking out your arse. Nobody learned from the Sheva transfer. United paid £30M for Berbatov (lol). Madrid bought Alonso and Benzema for £25M each. Adebayor went for around £25M. Look at the Ibrahimovic transfer. Kaka 57M, Tevez 47M.

Chelsea learned Sheva wasn't worth it, that is about it.

EDIT - Liverpool. Now it has a place here.

Erm not quite.
"eh, eh, Henry and Trezeguet blah blah"

But yeah, you said you failed the mysterious CHD test of doom. You fell into my trap and now suffer, mwhahahaha.

Bottom line is you're talking out of your arse. Most of the transfers you listed were nothing to do with a strikers age which was the original point with Sheva.

CHD

You never said that. I double dare you to try post a few points on your point. Try it.

Prufrock

midget lord wrote: »

For me, the next 8 league games are going to be vital in the career of Rafa Benitez.

Wigan H
Pompey A
Wolves H
Villa A
Spurs H
Stoke A
Wolves A
Bolton H

Two difficult games in there in Spurs and Villa, but they are games that we will need to get a result from if we are to get into 4th spot. If we are to get ourselves back on track then this has to be the time to do it. Three wins on the spin before meeting Villa, a good result there and I expect we will start to see things positively again.

Truth is there is not one easy game in there. Also Villa and Spurs are vital not just for Rafa but Liverpool FC. 4th place is slipping away and those games will be do or die. Should make for great tv. :pac:

Hank Scorpio

get a room?

Ush1

CHD wrote: »

You never said that. I double dare you to try post a few points on your point. Try it.

Bwahahaha. Sorry now. I shouldn't have to say it. I listed a few things and you didn't ask for details after, just said I failed. You're an idiot.:rolleyes:

Warper

Prufrock wrote: »

Truth is there is not one easy game in there. Also Villa and Spurs are vital not just for Rafa but Liverpool FC. 4th place is slipping away and those games will be do or die. Should make for great tv. :pac:

No easy games - half of those 8 games are against teams in the bottom 4 of the League?

Spiritoftheseventies

Ush1 wrote: »

Bwahahaha. Sorry now. I shouldn't have to say it. I listed a few things and you didn't ask for details after, just said I failed. You're an idiot.:rolleyes:

wouldn't go that far. But CHD you really need to chill.

CHD

bayviewclose wrote: »

wouldn't go that far. But CHD you really need to chill.

Im chilled! Point proven, he was talking BS.

~Rebel~

my head hurts.

MementoMori

The Muppet wrote: »

Interetsing post but it raises a few questions.

Torres is a contentious transfer. Apparantly he had a release clause of £27 million, At the time of his sale sources including the liverpool echo reported the higher value. Garcia who cost liverpool £6 million went teh other way as part of the deal whic confuses teh issue further. It's not unreasonable to surmise that Torres cost £20 million plues gacia's £6 million to give the total of £26 million.

Re Robbie Keane you say the BBC quoted his sale at £16 million and that thats good enough for you, could you provide a link for this because the transferleague provides a link to the BBC giving the £12 million valuation they use.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/t/tottenham_hotspur/7861523.stm

The article does mention add ons but they are unlikly to be met if Keane is on his way out at Tottenham as rumoured.


Did you include the purchase of Djbril Cisse in your figuires?

Do you have links to support the values you gave to the player listed as undisclosed on transfer league?

On the Keane transfer I made a slight error - the BBC have the figure of
£12m plus add-ons. Both the Guardian and Times have the figures of £16m plus add-ons.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article5645880.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/02/robbie-keane-return-spurs-tottenham-hostpur-liverpool

From the Guardian article.

Keane, who departed White Hart Lane for an initial £19m with a further £1.3m of potential add-ons, is understood to have cost Tottenham an initial £12m. That fee will rise quickly to nearer £16m with further ambitious add-ons, linked to silverware he claims at Spurs, to see up to £19m change hands again.

I was looking at players that Rafa brought into the club. Seeing as the deal for Cisse was done before Rafa was manager, it wouldn't make any sense to include him.

As regards the players who the transferleague have down as signed, with no fee, for the most part, I don't have any decent info on them and have the majority of them down as zero values. For pretty much the majority of these cases they were either youngsters coming to the club for whom compensation/training fees would be paid or players who came through the youth system and then moved in. In nearly all of these cases the money involved would be pretty minimal.

All in all there is approximately £5.5m of a difference between my figures and transferleague's figures.This is broken down by the players below.

One they have down as undisclosed as Anthony le Tallec wheras I have
£1.1m . Can remember seeing this being pretty much confirmed on Le Mans's website. Don't have the link for the Le Mans website but the Independent picked up on it as well.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/the-story-so-far-1435773.html

For Paletta I have him down as costing £2m and having Liverpool down as recouping the full £2m. Transfer league have him down as costing £2m and then being sold, with an implied return of zero. This was a messy transfer situation as it was all tied up in the Insua loan deal/purchase which was done with Boca Juniors around the same time. From what I can figure my figure of £2m is much likely to be closer to the actual figure as opposed to the implied transfer league figure of zero. Pretty much everywhere agrees this was a sale (i.e. clearly not a free transfer) and given his pedigree/promise
and experience I think it's a pretty realistic valuation. I have an notion that my reasoning for picking Paletta was the talk around the time of him being shipped out at little or no net cost.

Nunez I'm not sure where I got my figure of £1.5m from but seems to pass the reasonability (he was clearly sold, seems a likely transfer fee for him) test especially when compared to transferleague's zero figure.

Lee Peltier who they have down as being signed I have a figure of £209,150.
Don't have a link for this but when the deal was done it was confirmed that a fee was paid on the Yeovil website, so I'd have a bit more confidence in my figure as opposed to transferleague's zero. Also the sheer oddity of the figure would lead me believe that I did have an actual source and didn't pluck it out of the air.

Hammill they have down as being sold, but no figure. I have him down as a figure of £500k, based on the talk/rumours at the time, the confirmation that it was a substanial six-figure deal by Barnsley, the facts surrounding his transfer.

On Hobbs they have him down as signed for both the purchase and sale. ( i.e. zero in both cases). I have him down as being purchased for £150k and being sold for £400k but only getting £300k as Lincoln has a 25% sell-on fee when he was bought. In other words a net profit of £150k. The sale price was officially undisclosed but pretty sure the my basis for the £400k was a combination of Leicester fans who were delighted at picking him up for so little and Lincoln City talking about receiving their cut of the sell-on fee.

I'm not standing 100% over my figures and could well be proved inaccurate on them. However I am pretty confident that using my figures gives a more comprehensive accurate idea of what things cost than using transferleagues.

MementoMori

bayviewclose wrote: »

btw how much has been paid off to Roma on Aqualani aquisition.Heard they were still waiting on next installment

Have you a source for this?

Attached the document (in Italian) which breaks down the details of the fee payable to Roma. From this I would assume that the initial payment of €5m has been made.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

SlickRic

Pighead wrote: »

So why are you saying his position should be reviewed at the end of the season then? Surely what CHD has said, will still apply then?

only seeing this now, but i'll answer.

i'm saying it should be reviewed at the end of the season, because that's the responsible thing to do. he's not immune to criticism or getting things wrong, obviously.

the whole situation at the club should be taken into account, not simply a run of bad results.

if it's apparent come the end of the season that he's incapable of bringing this team forward, and there's a better option out there, and we have the money to support that new manager, then that would have to be something to be considered.

but a sacking mid-season is an absolute last resort, and something that, from what i can see, is very unlikely to work. it could, but we're not in a position to take a risk like that, and have it fall flat on its face.

Spiritoftheseventies

MementoMori wrote: »

Have you a source for this?

Attached the document (in Italian) which breaks down the details of the fee payable to Roma. From this I would assume that the initial payment of €5m has been made.

Yes they have received the £5 million but nothing else so far from what I can make from this and other articles on the issue.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2009/1212/1224260593292.html

Boggles

SlickRic wrote: »

only seeing this now, but i'll answer.

i'm saying it should be reviewed at the end of the season, because that's the responsible thing to do. he's not immune to criticism or getting things wrong, obviously.

the whole situation at the club should be taken into account, not simply a run of bad results.

if it's apparent come the end of the season that he's incapable of bringing this team forward, and there's a better option out there, and we have the money to support that new manager, then that would have to be something to be considered.

but a sacking mid-season is an absolute last resort, and something that, from what i can see, is very unlikely to work. it could, but we're not in a position to take a risk like that, and have it fall flat on its face.

Are you saying he should be given until the end of the season regardless of results?

I think Liverpool supporters and supporters in general are all expecting results to turn around.

But what if that doesn't happen?

When is the cut off point?

MementoMori

ziggy wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yup.
Heskey's sale which I've already mentioned as a £2.75m error

They have Krygiakos's cost as £1.5m wheras I have him as £2m

They don't have Pacheco listed i.e. they don't have any costing for him, whereas I have him down as costing £350k.

They have Bellamy down as costing £6m I have him down as costing £6.5m

So that's nearly £4.1m in error in their prices which fall against Liverpool.

Spiritoftheseventies

MementoMori wrote: »

Yup.
Heskey's sale which I've already mentioned as a £2.75m error

They have Krygiakos's cost as £1.5m wheras I have him as £2m

They don't have Pacheco listed i.e. they don't have any costing for him, whereas I have him down as costing £350k.

They have Bellamy down as costing £6m I have him down as costing £6.5m

So that's nearly £4.1m in error in their prices which fall against Liverpool.

Wonder if agents fees are added into the equation. might account for the difference in figures

SlickRic

Boggles wrote: »

Are you saying he should be given until the end of the season regardless of results?

I think Liverpool supporters and supporters in general are all expecting results to turn around.

But what if that doesn't happen?

When is the cut off point?

for me, if 4th this season becomes out of our reach, then that would be a major cut off point. i can't imagine i'll have much patience by then.

i'm working on the premise that that doesn't happen. and if it does happen, it's during the last week or two of the season.

regardless of our bad luck (blah blah), that squad should get 4th.

MementoMori

bayviewclose wrote: »

Wonder if agents fees are added into the equation. might account for the difference in figures

Pretty much all sources tend to report the basic fee.

I would rate the chances of agents fees being part of the equation to be vanishingly small.

Ush1

Should give you a good idea:

http://forum.football.co.uk/about223801.html

Spiritoftheseventies

MementoMori wrote: »

Yup.
Heskey's sale which I've already mentioned as a £2.75m error

They have Krygiakos's cost as £1.5m wheras I have him as £2m

They don't have Pacheco listed i.e. they don't have any costing for him, whereas I have him down as costing £350k.

They have Bellamy down as costing £6m I have him down as costing £6.5m

So that's nearly £4.1m in error in their prices which fall against Liverpool.

according to this Bellamy was sold for 7.5m

http://www.ex-canaries.co.uk/players/bellamy.htm

Prufrock

Warper wrote: »

No easy games - half of those 8 games are against teams in the bottom 4 of the League?

Yeah which means they badly need the points. Also couple that with how Liverpool have been playing. I'm not saying they won't be limited but they won't be easy!

kippy

midget lord wrote: »

For me, the next 8 league games are going to be vital in the career of Rafa Benitez.

Wigan H
Pompey A
Wolves H
Villa A
Spurs H
Stoke A
Wolves A
Bolton H

Two difficult games in there in Spurs and Villa, but they are games that we will need to get a result from if we are to get into 4th spot. If we are to get ourselves back on track then this has to be the time to do it. Three wins on the spin before meeting Villa, a good result there and I expect we will start to see things positively again.

I think the last eight were even more important to be honest.

Jazzy

The Muppet wrote: »

Interetsing post but it raises a few questions.

Torres is a contentious transfer. Apparantly he had a release clause of £27 million, At the time of his sale sources including the liverpool echo reported the higher value. Garcia who cost liverpool £6 million went teh other way as part of the deal whic confuses teh issue further. It's not unreasonable to surmise that Torres cost £20 million plues gacia's £6 million to give the total of £26 million.

this has to be among my favorite long standing issues and mysteries on the soccer forum. utd fans absolutely fukin love trying to somewhat nitpick in and around this as they pretty much know that we have a better striker there then berbatov et al and he came at a price utd could have afforded.


big news - IT DOESNT MATTER. 20m or 27m it doesnt fukin matter. we could not give a sh1t. benitez im sure doesnt give a sh1t. ferguson doesnt, heck i bet even lee sharpe doesnt give a toss.... yet loads of utd fans on this forum give a toss every other month. why? why do you give so much of a toss over like 1 - 7m spent by some rich football team? i dunno, i tend to think we got him for 25 and leave it at that because...... it doesnt fukin matter.


oh but sorry, what am i thinking. you boys have your spreadsheets which hold conclusive undeniable proof that rafa benitez is evil and the worst manager since that dweeb from empire records. sh1t like this really drag this forum out... as we can see by this thread being dragged out even further. and who is that i see with another fukin quality assured post about liverpool fc? oh the muppet, the Jonny on the ball when it comes to liverpool

MementoMori

bayviewclose wrote: »

according to this Bellamy was sold for 7.5m

http://www.ex-canaries.co.uk/players/bellamy.htm

Yes but I'm talking about what he cost Liverpool, not what he was sold for.

Incidentally I agree with the transferleague figure of £7.5m as what he was sold for.

LuckyLloyd

MementoMori wrote: »

Someone was asking about Transferleague not being a reliable source.

Checking the prices I have versus their prices for the transfers for the period covering Rafa's time at the club, I ended up with a difference of £21,479,150. Basically I have a net spend of £71,920,850 for Rafa's period in charge whereas transferleague have a net spend of £93,400,000.

Now I'm not claiming 100% accuracy for the figures and there are some reasonable reasons for the variance but I have a lot more faith in my figures than the transferleague ones.

One area where there is an immediate variable is the Torres figure. Basically I go with the £20m figure whereas they use the £26.5m figure. If £20m is good enough for the Liverpool site and the BBC it's good enough for me.

Another area where there is a variance is the figure for Keane's sale back to Spurs. The site uses the figure of £12m, whereas I use the figure of £16m. I have some sympathy for the site in this case, as the base figure was £12m with £4m being payable once Spurs didn't get relegated. Given the BBC, Times and the Guardian also go with the £16m I have no qualms whatsoever in using it. It is worth pointing out that this is the only place where any element of an add-on is used in my figures. However there is a reported other £3m in add-ons involved in the Keane deal so I think in the interest of fairness £16m is the best figure to use.

These two deals account for £10.5m of the difference. However that still leaves a difference of £10,979,150. This is pretty much all accounted for by either variance in prices/omission of transfers, or the fact that the site simply uses signed/undisclosed in a number of cases, which effectively puts a zero valuation in a number of cases. Interestingly under Rafa's time peiod there were 9 buys and 11 sells where this applied. Generally these were smaller deals but it is interesting to note that the number of cases where a zero figure was used is tilted against Rafa in that 11 sales were given a value of zero whereas 9 buys were given a value of zero.

Getting transfer prices right is at best a tricky business with a lot of best guess estimates. However if the site can't actually accurately track the players who come and go from a club, which is about a thousand times easier, how can people reasonably put into any trust into the actual figures. The sale of Diarra is simply not included in the transferleague figures.
While forgetting Alou Diarra maybe somewhat reasonable in terms of his impact on the pitch given the fact that he never actually lined out for Liverpool forgetting about completely him in terms of tracking transfers is pretty poor especially since he netted £1.98m

There is also the case there a number of the prices they have are simply wrong. One example is Heskey, which the site mentions as going for £6.25m
However the figure I used was £3.5m which I got from the BBC which says that Heskey went for £3.5m, which could have rise to £6.25m. When Birmingham were relegated, Karen Brady made a statement about not have to pay £1.5m to Liverpool. Anyway the base figure of £3.5m is what I've included in the figure even though it looks like the money received by Liverpool was most likely somewhere in the region of £4.5m. If the site used the figure of £3.5m for Heskey it would push the variance in the net spending even higher (Basically it would increase the site's net spend figure by £2.75m pushing it up to £96,150,000)

There are also a number of other transfers with questionable prices in terms of prices, but it would simply be a case of more of them same. Anyway my point is that overall transferleague is not a reliable source.

In terms of net spend there is a fair old difference between £72m and £94m.
In essence you are talking about the simple addition of at least one world-class player to the squad, but more likely you're looking at the the ability to upgrade a number of squad position i.e instead of having three players on free transfers, you could have one £10m player plus two £5m players.

Thanks for the time and effort on that one, good post.

mink_man

rafa is as done as the turkey ill be cookin on christmas day...burnt!

The Muppet

MementoMori wrote: »

On the Keane transfer I made a slight error - the BBC have the figure of
£12m plus add-ons. Both the Guardian and Times have the figures of £16m plus add-ons.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article5645880.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/02/robbie-keane-return-spurs-tottenham-hostpur-liverpool

From the Guardian article.



I was looking at players that Rafa brought into the club. Seeing as the deal for Cisse was done before Rafa was manager, it wouldn't make any sense to include him.

As regards the players who the transferleague have down as signed, with no fee, for the most part, I don't have any decent info on them and have the majority of them down as zero values. For pretty much the majority of these cases they were either youngsters coming to the club for whom compensation/training fees would be paid or players who came through the youth system and then moved in. In nearly all of these cases the money involved would be pretty minimal.

All in all there is approximately £5.5m of a difference between my figures and transferleague's figures.This is broken down by the players below.

One they have down as undisclosed as Anthony le Tallec wheras I have
£1.1m . Can remember seeing this being pretty much confirmed on Le Mans's website. Don't have the link for the Le Mans website but the Independent picked up on it as well.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/the-story-so-far-1435773.html

For Paletta I have him down as costing £2m and having Liverpool down as recouping the full £2m. Transfer league have him down as costing £2m and then being sold, with an implied return of zero. This was a messy transfer situation as it was all tied up in the Insua loan deal/purchase which was done with Boca Juniors around the same time. From what I can figure my figure of £2m is much likely to be closer to the actual figure as opposed to the implied transfer league figure of zero. Pretty much everywhere agrees this was a sale (i.e. clearly not a free transfer) and given his pedigree/promise
and experience I think it's a pretty realistic valuation. I have an notion that my reasoning for picking Paletta was the talk around the time of him being shipped out at little or no net cost.

Nunez I'm not sure where I got my figure of £1.5m from but seems to pass the reasonability (he was clearly sold, seems a likely transfer fee for him) test especially when compared to transferleague's zero figure.

Lee Peltier who they have down as being signed I have a figure of £209,150.
Don't have a link for this but when the deal was done it was confirmed that a fee was paid on the Yeovil website, so I'd have a bit more confidence in my figure as opposed to transferleague's zero. Also the sheer oddity of the figure would lead me believe that I did have an actual source and didn't pluck it out of the air.

Hammill they have down as being sold, but no figure. I have him down as a figure of £500k, based on the talk/rumours at the time, the confirmation that it was a substanial six-figure deal by Barnsley, the facts surrounding his transfer.

On Hobbs they have him down as signed for both the purchase and sale. ( i.e. zero in both cases). I have him down as being purchased for £150k and being sold for £400k but only getting £300k as Lincoln has a 25% sell-on fee when he was bought. In other words a net profit of £150k. The sale price was officially undisclosed but pretty sure the my basis for the £400k was a combination of Leicester fans who were delighted at picking him up for so little and Lincoln City talking about receiving their cut of the sell-on fee.

I'm not standing 100% over my figures and could well be proved inaccurate on them. However I am pretty confident that using my figures gives a more comprehensive accurate idea of what things cost than using transferleagues.

Thanks for the reply, I'm not trying to be clever with you but from your comments it appears to me that you are piicking and choosing the best figures to suit your arguments. For example you quoted the BBC as reliable for Torres yet choose the Times for another Keane despite the BBC having published figures. IMO You cast doubt on the credibility of your argument by doing so.

Cisse cost £14 million and was signed after Rafa took over, I understand Rafa was not involved in the negotiations to sign him but he should still be included in Liverpools figures for Rafa's tenure. If not there is an argument that that Players Rafa sold but did not buy (previous managers signings) should not be included either.

I wouldn't argue about a few million either way as it's difficult to get figures particulalty for the fringe players you have highlited. The £ 6million for Torres , £4 milllion for Keane and £14 Million for Cisses explains a £24 million difference between the various sources. The £14 million is a black and white case as the Club definitely paid the money during Rafas tenure and so has to be included. That leaves the Torres and Keane transfers in dispute, people will just have to make up their own minds on them, Personally I'd go with the transfer league figures for the reasons I stated earlier.

Dont be at yourself

Muppet wrote:

Cisse cost £14 million and was signed after Rafa took over, I understand Rafa was not involved in the negotiations to sign him but he should still be included in Liverpools figures for Rafa's tenure. If not there is an argument that that Players Rafa sold but did not buy (previous managers signings) should not be included either.

Not quite the same, though. Rafa (largely) made the decisions on who to buy or sell - with the exception of Cisse. So Cisse and his transfer fee can't be used as a stick to beat him with.

K-9

The Muppet wrote: »

Cisse cost £14 million and was signed after Rafa took over, I understand Rafa was not involved in the negotiations to sign him but he should still be included in Liverpools figures for Rafa's tenure. If not there is an argument that that Players Rafa sold but did not buy (previous managers signings) should not be included either.

What are you on about?

He inherited that squad, including Cisse.

midget lord

kippy wrote: »

I think the last eight were even more important to be honest.

In relation to securing 4th. We cant play the last 8 games again unfortunately.

Spiritoftheseventies

kippy wrote: »

I think the last eight were even more important to be honest.

Nah these upcoming eight games important especially given Rafa's comments today. A big win over Villa will be a strong statement of intent. We may be struggling but we are not struggling that bad. a four or five nil win should suffice!

MementoMori

The Muppet wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, I'm not trying to be clever with you but from your comments it appears to me that you are piicking and choosing the best figures to suit your arguments. For example you quoted the BBC as reliable for Torres yet choose the Times for another Keane despite the BBC having published figures. IMO You cast doubt on the credibility of your argument by doing so.

Cisse cost £14 million and was signed after Rafa took over, I understand Rafa was not involved in the negotiations to sign him but he should still be included in Liverpools figures for Rafa's tenure. If not there is an argument that that Players Rafa sold but did not buy (previous managers signings) should not be included either.

I wouldn't argue about a few million either way as it's difficult to get figures particulalty for the fringe players you have highlited. The £ 6million for Torres , £4 milllion for Keane and £14 Million for Cisses explains a £24 million difference between the various sources. The £14 million is a black and white case as the Club definitely paid the money during Rafas tenure and so has to be included. That leaves the Torres and Keane transfers in dispute, people will just have to make up their own minds on them, Personally I'd go with the transfer league figures for the reasons I stated earlier.

On the Keane transfer, I'll admit that I made a slight mistake but the BBC article doesn't actually contradict the Guardian/Times articles, just deals with the £4m add-on relating to SPurs avoiding relegation differently. Basically the BBC say £12m but don't include the £4m for avoiding relegation and don't include the other additional add-ons. The Guardian and the Times include the £4m which was conditional on Spurs avoiding relegation which was pretty much guaranteed to be paid. I'd imagine that the vast majority of people who read any of the articles would be of the opinion that Liverpool have recouped £16m from Spurs as a result of Keane moving back there.

On the whole Cisse thing, while the money might have been paid in the period I don't think you can seriously claim that criticisms of Rafa's spending on players should be on the basis of including spending on players who he wasn't even responsible for bringing to the club. I'm sure the club paid out other sums of money relating to other players Houillier brought to the club, but no-one thinks these players should be included in Rafa's signings, so I don't really see the sense in including Cisse, when discussing Rafa's spending. According to pretty much all sources the Cisse deal was long done before Rafa ever joined the club and there was talk Rafa tried to nix it.

Check the date on these two stories if you have any doubts.

Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 May, 2004, 15:33 GMT 16:33 UK
Liverpool tie up Cisse deal

Cisse has a hugely impressive scoring record
Liverpool have confirmed that Auxerre striker Djibril Cisse will be joining them on 1 July, despite Gerard Houllier's exit from the club.
There had been doubts about his move as Houllier had been instrumental in setting it up but chief executive Rick Parry confirmed he would be joining.

"I don't think you could have taken the decision not to sign him because we've parted company with Gerard," he said.

The 22-year-old was the French league's top scorer this season with 26 goals.

Cisse says he turned down Real Madrid to join Liverpool and Parry says his arrival will give fans something to look forward to next season.

"Cisse is a very exciting player with a good goalscoring record. He has pace and power and all the qualities a modern striker needs," he said.

"He is someone who we believe is capable of scoring 20 goals a season."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/3735279.stm

Last Updated: Tuesday, 1 June, 2004, 10:10 GMT 11:10 UK
Benitez quits Valencia

Rafael Benitez has resigned as coach of Valencia as speculation mounts he is set to become the next Liverpool boss.
The Primera Liga club had offered Benitez a two-year contract extension, but the former Tenerife coach rejected the new contract on the table.

"This had been possibly one of the most difficult decisions I have had to take in my sporting career," said Benitez.

"I'm going to take a few days to analyse the options and I will choose the one that suits me best."

Benitez, who led Valencia to the Spanish title and the Uefa Cup this season, is tipped to replace Gerard Houllier at Liverpool.

Benitez added: "I want to see it as positive that the club has tried to keep me on, but after the events of this season which have undermined my morale I have decided to reconsider my future at the club.

"I want to thank all the players, the employees at Valencia, the press and especially the fans for their support over the past three years."

Spanish media have reported Liverpool have offered Benitez a five-year deal.


Valencia president Jaime Orti insisted the club had done all it could to persuade Benitez to stay.

"Valencia not only did everything possible to ensure Rafa Benitez stayed on for the remaining year of his contract but also tried to get him to extend his deal with the club."

Benitez is known to have had his differences with the board and in particular with the club's sporting director Jesus Garcia Pitarch.

The two clashed at the start of the season over the control of possible new signings and Benitez expressed his dissatisfaction over the club's failure to reinforce the squad with players he had recommended.

Benitez has enjoyed unprecedented success since taking over the Primera Liga club three years ago.

In his first season in charge he led the club to the Spanish title, the first time they had won the Primera Liga in 30 years.
Benitez has also coached Real Madrid's high profile B team, as well as Tenerife, Extremadura, Valladolid and Osasuna.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/3765515.stm

Cisse cost £14 million and was signed after Rafa took over, I understand Rafa was not involved in the negotiations to sign him but he should still be included in Liverpools figures for Rafa's tenure. If not there is an argument that that Players Rafa sold but did not buy (previous managers signings) should not be included either.

Inadvertently you touch on a key point here.
When you actually look at the amount of money realised by players who were at the club when Rafa took over it clearly shows just how poor the overall quality of the players at the club at that time was. Add in the utter lack of any sort of money realised from players coming through the youth side of things (forget completely the notion of any players from the youth system being good enough to challenge for a first-team spot) and you get a good idea of just what sort of level the club was at.

Then compare this with the amount of money Rafa has netted for the club when you look at the money gained on players who were bought and subsequently sold by Rafa during his time at the club. Even including the vast legion of "flops" that Rafa has "wasted" money on, he has managed to end up with a net figure of £19m. This is even including the effect of Keane, Morientes, Pennant, Josemi, Kromkamp. Bit of a head-scratcher that.

When you look at this and you look at the potential resale value of the current squad, it's quite clear that one of Rafa's major problems has been the quality of the players already at the club when he took over as opposed to Rafa's percieved lack of ability in the transfer market.
Overall I'm eagerly look forward to digging this thread up in a few years when these criticisms of Rafa are shown up for how poor they actually are.

Spiritoftheseventies

Does anyone knows if the coaches at the academy are tied to Rafa. If they replace him to they replace coaches as well?

MementoMori

bayviewclose wrote: »

Does anyone knows if the coaches at the academy are tied to Rafa. If they replace him to they replace coaches as well?

Clearly they are not formally/legally tied so that if for some reason (Fowler forbid) that Rafa would leave, they would automatically have to leave as well, which seems to be what you are asking.
I've posted previously about the fact that there are actually only 2 Spanish coaches at a high level at the Academy. More of the Spanish contingent are involved at first-team/reserve level than at the Academy level.

Le King

I like all these excuses and all. But there is no excuse for results. Living off Istanbul, forever.

LuckyLloyd

Osu wrote: »

I like all these excuses and all. But there is no excuse for results. Living off Istanbul, forever.

Excellent, so Rafa stays on the basis of our league performance last season. Huzzah! Thread won!

Kirby

Not winning anything is a result?

LuckyLloyd

Kirby wrote: »

Not winning anything is a result?

Yep, it is. Think hard young grasshopper and you shall see why last season's end premierleague results were a success.

Kirby

This grasshopper thinks that being thankful for second is a loser's mentality and complete ostrich syndrome.

He also thinks that all talk of "progress" is complete lunacy considering the distinct possibilty of losing 4th place........for the first time in quite a while. Pool have been nailed on for a top 4 and aren't at the moment.

Thats not progress. Thats regress.

The Muppet

MementoMori wrote: »

On the Keane transfer, I'll admit that I made a slight mistake but the BBC article doesn't actually contradict the Guardian/Times articles, just deals with the £4m add-on relating to SPurs avoiding relegation differently. Basically the BBC say £12m but don't include the £4m for avoiding relegation and don't include the other additional add-ons. The Guardian and the Times include the £4m which was conditional on Spurs avoiding relegation which was pretty much guaranteed to be paid. I'd imagine that the vast majority of people who read any of the articles would be of the opinion that Liverpool have recouped £16m from Spurs as a result of Keane moving back there.

.

We may agree to differ on the contentious transfers , Fair play for addressing my questions in civil manner, We''ll just have to see how things pan out over the season. It will be interesting to see what action if any your owners choose to take.

That_Guy

kida wrote: »

this old nugget again - who chose to spend best part of 40M on a FB that can't defend or a midfielder thats won't be a regular until 2nd hlaf of the season? Maybe he didn't have as much to spend this summer as others but boy did he fvckup with what he did spend? He is ultimately to blame for Alonso going also.

I'm still waiting to see the source on where Rafa spent 40M on a FB.

monkey9

Originally Posted by kida
this old nugget again - who chose to spend best part of 40M on a FB that can't defend or a midfielder thats won't be a regular until 2nd hlaf of the season? Maybe he didn't have as much to spend this summer as others but boy did he fvckup with what he did spend? He is ultimately to blame for Alonso going also.

That_Guy wrote: »

I'm still waiting to see the source on where Rafa spent 40M on a FB.

I think what he meant to say was the best part of 40mil was spend on a FB and a midfielder

Spiritoftheseventies

Btw can we define what will have to happen for Liverpool to "be done" (Rafa will go eventually) given this is part of OPs original question. Is it failure to qualify for champions league or Europe. Just so this thread doesn't drag on and on.

Warper

bayviewclose wrote: »

Btw can we define what will have to happen for Liverpool to "be done" (Rafa will go eventually) given this is part of OPs original question. Is it failure to qualify for champions league or Europe. Just so this thread doesn't drag on and on.

Well after Rafa's wise comments today guaranteeing that they will finish in the Top 4, I guess if they dont well....................

I think the comments were a bit daft. The players know they need to get into the Top 4 and this is just adding a little bit more pressure on the team.

Spiritoftheseventies

Warper wrote: »

Well after Rafa's wise comments today guaranteeing that they will finish in the Top 4, I guess if they dont well....................

I think the comments were a bit daft. The players know they need to get into the Top 4 and this is just adding a little bit more pressure on the team.

I think he said them to re assure the fans. And I think they need re-assurance really. I worry what will happen to the pool if we fall back. We are a big club no matter what some might say. And to fail to qualify could have disastrous consequences. Just look how long United spent in the wilderness after the glory days of the sixties.

mayordenis

Warper wrote: »

Well after Rafa's wise comments today guaranteeing that they will finish in the Top 4, I guess if they dont well....................

I think the comments were a bit daft. The players know they need to get into the Top 4 and this is just adding a little bit more pressure on the team.

I don't see how it adds any pressure at all.

If anything it's saying something along the lines of "I guarantee 4th as I believe in the players and know they are good enough".

He's as bayview says reassuring the fans and at the same time backing the squad and backroom staff, and the club as a whole to come through this rough patch.

As the title says Haters Gonna Hate.

noodler

mayordenis wrote: »

I don't see how it adds any pressure at all.

If anything it's saying something along the lines of "I guarantee 4th as I believe in the players and know they are good enough".

He's as bayview says reassuring the fans and at the same time backing the squad and backroom staff, and the club as a whole to come through this rough patch.

As the title says Haters Gonna Hate.

Are you for real? Jesus.

Saying we ARE going to finish fourth is completely different to saying we have the players to do so. The same way you would hear Rafa in previous preseasons saying we have the TEAM to win the league without being as silly to say we WILL win it.

Rafa is heaping more pressure on the players by belittling the current league table and form with these silly predictions. The talking needs to be done on the pitch.

Chardee MacDennis

Kirby wrote: »

This grasshopper thinks that being thankful for second is a loser's mentality and complete ostrich syndrome.

the day we finished second there were 18 premier league managers that would have strongly disagreed with you...