Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Toure can't even hold a spot in Man City these days, Flamini is a sub in AC Milan and Eboue was pretty much wished by their fans to leave the club. How could he be better than any of our players. You can't be serious about him better than Babel back then. He could be better than a demotivated Babel, but not the one we saw first season, and even last.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Originally Posted by Mascot88
In case anyone hasn't read the other thread that mascot is reffering to this is what I said.
People are to quick to jump on Rafa but then LFC bashing is nothing new. The yanks have turned our beloved club from a prestige Rolls Royce operation into the best used car lot in the world and I say fair play to Rafa for making Boyce from Only Fools and Horses look like an amateur!
Now consider this
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/spor...ange-rate.html
So those below us in the table who had a better net spend than us:
spurs, wasnt their net spend about £40 million last season.
blue shite, they got £20 odd million for lescott?
hull and wigan to late to investigate but IS THIS THE LEVEL WE ARE AT????
blackburn, sold santa cruz for more than their net spend.
portsmouth, diarra and Johnson sold in a football fire sale to stay alive.
the arse, the exception to the rule.
scum, take out the cying diver and they would have spent more than us.
Not even considering the chav's, city and the promoted teams stoke, villa, bolton, fulham, sunderland and west ham (FFS!!) all spent more in the last window than Rafa and also using those figures Rafa's spend the previous season! We were 2nd in the league! Automatically qualified for europe! When will people get off his back? Yes he has bought some duds but that is what happens when you do not have big money nevermind zero money to invest. You can add up all the josemi's, gonzales' and leto's you like to get one decent player but unfortunately the money has to be spread over muliple positions to provide cover for the squad. Where would we now be with 10 players out if he hadn't?
One other thing I have just noticed since season 08/09 when we have received only £7 feckin million from the owners for transfers, which other senior players other than pennant and possibly keane, that cost over £6 million plus signed by Rafa have been moved on without making a profit, what was the reason and which were?
keane - could debate this all over again.
pennant - a punt that failed but bare in mind real madrid were considering him!
crouch - wanted first team football that Rafa couldnt guarantee, country before club basically.
sissoko - thought the lad was class until his eye injury and loss of confidence.
alonso - could debate this all over again but he wasn't the player he was last season during barry gate.
Season before - only bellamy but would you want an unhappy golfer in your team?
The transfer market is fraught with danger, Rafa get's grief for signing morientes, personaly I was jumping up and down when I heard the previous season's champions league top goal scorer was signing for us! What were the doubters saying then? The same can be said when souness signed the best defender and attacker in the league in dean saunders and mark wright, one was bloody awful and the other never got to 100% because of injuries and what not. Even the great King Kenny bought david speedy FFS! don't get me started on evans and houllier.
Even now when Rafa does go out and spend's £17 million in strengthening one position i.e RB people have a go and say we should of bought more player for less in other position's, jesus Rafa really can't win.
Gutted that alonso left and I think the style of football we could of played with a play maker and FB's that can bomb forward to provide width and crosses coupled with the ability to go through the middle would of made us unplayable. Lets hope Aqualani can do what xabi did and get us a few goals too.
Sorry this is long winded and hope you have bothered to read all this but the neggy's and the sensational journo's piss me off beyond belief. If this season does go pete tong 10% can be attributed to the manager but the thieving, lying, shit stabbing, un ashamed scummy shit of our owners account for the other 90%. When we can compete financially with the power houses of football mentioned above I will begin to look closer at the manager and our results, but when you see the level of investment, loss of a key player and unbelievable bad luck on the pitch and with injuries I will stay behind Rafa and his dealing's 100%
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Why is the current squad weaker than last year's if we spent as much money buying reinforcements? Why couldn't rafa cut a fat ass paycheck to alonso so we could keep him?
I don't think buying glen johnson was a mistake. It's just the concept that rafa is willing to buy a 20 million pound midfielder who he knows is injured, and isn't the same type of player as alonso.
It's similar to how rafa replaced sissoko with mascherano who was playing better and the money was justified. It's not like rafa couldn't have bought a pirlo or a veloso who weren't injured.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Eh that's a touchy subject because man united's squad if you exclude rooney and ronaldo, is really not that great. Once you take out one of these talismans, it sticks out like a sore thumb when you buy a wigan player as a replacement.
It's clear as daylight that the scum downgraded, but it's also clear as daylight that they made some money off of that downgrade...and they're still second!!!
Now it's not like rafa wasn't told to re-invest that money that he got from alonso. He was given money to spend on alonso's replacement and he couldn't even get gareth friggin barry. He can't even blame parry for this either. It was all down rafa's poor judgement. Lucas Neill pulled the same move before by choosing a higher pay check as opposed to a higher team. Rafa's talk about players with good mentality is pure bollocks because he got it wrong that one time.
Alonso had a better mentality than barry and was betrayed by rafa. So how does rafa replace alonso? buy an injured player
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
I would like to think that Rafa:
1. Did not realised that Lucas is not capable of holding the midfield along with Mascherano. He thought that Lucas n Spearing may be able to fill the void temporarily before Aquilani is fit but he's being let down by them and I'm not surprised by that. To me, Lucas can only be the 4th choice midfielder at most. An experienced backup midfielder like Lorik Cana would be useful.
2. Did not realised we have no 2nd good strikers in case Torres or Gerrard injured. His hopes are placed on Ngog, Babel or Voronin in case Torres is injured. He should realise the potential danger given Torres injury history. An experienced backup striker like Luca Toni or Sanli Tuncay etc can be useful in bad times like these.
Last edited by Red Sin; 03-11-09 at 04:10 AM.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
O.K Rafa has been at L.F.C. for over 5 years now and i have been patiently waiting
for a RW since his arrival (playing Gerrard in that position was 1 of many ways he has found to avoid it). In fact Gerrard has been used to cover a multiple of rafa's sins as have other players i.e.kuyt as RW (not striker) Babel as LW???(not striker) the list goes onand on. Every transfer window i have been left feeling frustrated and baffled, even now without Torres do we have a reliable second striker? So many questionable player acquisitions its untrue. Surely after this amount of time their can be no excuses for our squad to not
have an even balance of good reliable players. Even Carra has had far too much pressure put on him to hold the defence together for far too long hence i think his frustration and odd costly mistake. We can look at the figures all day long but they dont tell the whole story. Its like looking at an elephants backside and making an assessment instead of looking at the front and sides as well. Wenger in this respect
is far more shrewd and astute with regard to transfers and generally keeping a balanced squad.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Not sure what you're getting at here Gears are you Pro Rafa or not?
If your saying that by stripping out the talismans the scum are average what has whisky nose been doing with the 15+ million spent on ferdinand, vidic, hargreaves, nani, anderson, carrick, valencia and berbetov (£32 million! certainly puts keane into context)
Alonso wasn't betrayed he had 2 good season's out of 5, his first and his last and its fair to say no matter what we made £19.5 million on his sale, so give Aqualani the downgrade a chance before you judge. Rafa thought barry was a done deal and shocked as anyone when he chose cash over ambition a bit like Lucas Neil. As for Rafa being given the money to spend from the alonso sale, oo woopey doo, a club of our staure can only buy player's with the cash we raise in sales, do you not lay any blame at the owners door?
What poor judgement are you talking about?! Aqualani hasn't even started a game yet? What would you rather do, xabi was a unique player, replace him with another lucas (no disrespect he is getting better) who can play immediately or sign a guy who may be out for a couple of months but over the course of 5 years be interchangeable with Stevie and play football in the style Rafa wants. The fact he bought an injured player should show how unique xabi was, how much he rates Aqualini and how committed Rafa is to our club. Rafa has no judgement? He took a striker from spain who wasn't a prolific goal scorer and turned him into the most feared striker in the prem league and if his national squad wouldn't keep breaking him may be we would have 19 and not so many wingers this season.
Got it wrong one time? Personally I don't think he did and secondly if Rafa hadn't spent the money do you think it would still be there in Jan or in our owners troughs? The scum maybe second but it's not even xmas yet FFS but they have already lost to us and burnley, sunderland should also have won, chavski have lost to stoke!
It's a mad season, the most open for years. Lets see what happens eh?
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
You obviously haven't bothered to read through various post's in this thread otherwise you would contribute something new to a constructive debate rather than bang on without a counter arguement, nothing you have said has not been said before here. Take a bit of time to read and not just jump in with your own thought's but just to highlight, it has been said that:
Kuyt has scored more goal's and his best season for LFC was playing on the right.
Gerrard plays on the left if it suits england but is given a free role and no one complains, maybe when Aqualni is fit Stevie can be dropped back to fill xabi's role, with his ability to make a pass, pass a ball quickly over 50 yds and with our attacking FB's our football could be amazing.
Babel has played every position up top and still look's useless, fact is IMHO once he got a big money move to the prem he just can't be arsed.
The reason we don't have a replacement for Torres is because normally we only play one up top, hence why crouch left. Also how the hell do you propse to purchase a striker to give adequate cover for Torres when the guy is now supposedly worth around £70 million? The owners in the last TWO season's have given us roughly £7 million,I doubt we could even afford Tuncay for that even if we wanted to. Ngog cost £1.5 million at the age of 19, his goal return versus mins on the pitch is better than the scums new golden boy and if you want a well known worldclass striker get your cheque book out and be prepared to spend £25 million plus.
Maybe if the feckin yanks had given us more than on average £3.5 million over the past 2 season Rafa would of signed someone else? Fact is if you need to spend £25 million plus on another frontman to get a decent one (if we could!) he's not going to be happy sat on the bench (like crouch) and is at least 5 times LFC's net spend over the last 2 years.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Totally agree. Since the days of Mcmanaman, we've been crying out loud for a world class winger. And so many players that Rafa put at the wings don't really excite. To the extent he even used Cisse and Kuyt (who are bought as strikers) to fill up the RW position.
In a 4-2-3-1, formation, the RW n the LW positions are extremely important in supporting the lone striker. That will make Gerrard's work easier as he'll concentrating on providing sublime passes or score goals coming deep.
Ask yourself, since when you see Kuyt or Babel or Riera showed so much threat that the opposition's centre defenders have to come out of positions to cover their full backs time and time again?? Yossi provides that little bit of threat but we certainly need more than that.
Last edited by Red Sin; 03-11-09 at 06:22 AM.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
it is easy to cast blame when a player who has potential doesn't leave up to it, but that is part of the game. i have no problem with rafa about signing players who didn't come through, like babel, voronin, or lucas. iadmit i thought they were great signs at the time. ( keep playing them after they perform badly is a different thing ).
my problem is this, we could have bought barry for 15mil, but it was to much for rafa, so instead he buys an injured italian player for 20. where is the logic in that. if we had barry from the start of the season , thing wouldn't be that bad.
people keep saying rafa has n ospending money, that is bullshit. he spent over 40 mil just this summer ( GJ, aqua man and kyrgiakos ). getting a striker was first priorty. a replacement for alonso second, and defence last. we have a few decent options in midfield, and even more at the back, but up front its a one man show.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
To be fair to Rafa, we may not know what's happening behind Arbeloa's sale to Madrid. Sounds like he's homesick and wanted to go back Spain rather than being unloaded by the gaffer. And coupled with the fact that Glen Johnson is available, I think most managers would be tempted to do these deals. And seriously, G.Johnson is one of the few positives in this season.
But in the case of Lucas deputying for the injured Aquilani and Ngog/Voronin as backup to Torres, I would say Rafa is completely cluless about their limited abilities.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
So a secondary striker was more important than replacing Alonso? I agree that we need back up but that is nonsense. We didnt have the money to but Barry, he went to City long before Alonso was sold, coupled with the fact he bought Johnson and Aqualani to make the team more attack minded a criticism that has been levelled at him since his arrival. Having spent 40m he'd sold 40m, therefore replacing like for like. Therefore the club spent 0.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Mate, I'm not being funny but you've got four posts on this website and you're trying to convince us that you know more about Rafa Benitez's players than Rafa Benitez.
Armchair managers. Don't you just love them.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
It's astonishing that posters who complain about Lucas not being good enough, don't think replacing Alonso was our top priority.
That doesn't make any sense.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Firstly, having 4 posts on TIA doesnt mean my 30 years of supporting Liverpool is a joke. Secondly, I'm not trying to convince anybody that I know more than Rafa. I am just frustrated that he cannot see the fact that Lucas is not good enough for the 1st team while Aquilani recovers and also not getting a good enough replacement to be our 3rd centre mid.
Players like Lucas and Kuyt only looks good when the entire team is playing well. And when the chips are down, it's only special players like Torres, Gerrard or Benni that make a difference. And these are players with skill and technique, not hardworking horses like Lucas or Kuyt.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Keep saying it and I will say it again but we needed a top striker in the close season. If we had signed one then he would have gone up front with Torres and Gerrard would have moved into the slot behind them. He would still be able to get forward to score goals but would also be in a position to supply the two strikers, until Aquilani is up to speed we lack this from midfield, Gerrard would have supplied this.
Lucas and Mash are too defensive, play Mash yes but not the two. I am not a Lucas fan but to be fair to him he has been asked to fill a role that is too much for him. Thats not to say he won`t be able to do this in later years but we need it now.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Congrats on your 5th post....
Your making alot more sense with your first 5 posts than alot have on here with their first 500! Good to have like minded people around!
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Lucas has been one of our better performersthis season
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Agreed that number of posts or date joined is not a good benchmark of one's knowledge.
But the point in bold troubles me. Yes, I agree that Lucas and Kuyt are not as technically gifted as the players you mentioned. They are instead, team players. They play well when the team is playing well because they do not have to cover for additional "passengers". But when the team starts to be stagnant, they cannot create much themselves and may look to be a liability. Hope thats what you implied, and not that Kuyt and Lucas are no good.
And, to Matt, yes I know Cisse's transfer was already completed before Rafa's arrival. But there was a quite stir at that time that Rafa wanted to bring in Villa, whom he had bought for Valencia prior to his departure, for about 10-12M. Thought I would just put that into perspective. :)
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Thanks for ur compliments. But I am just voicing out what I've feel after witnessing the fast flowing attacking football played by LFC in the 80s and 90s, compared to the square passing + almost-zero off-the-ball movement football played currently.
Why don't we sometimes look at things from a different perspective? We often blame the fact that we cannot afford world class players because we do not have the dosh. Why cant we look at the style of football we're playing now?? Slow square (sometimes backwards) passes (not to mention at least 10 mins of passing between Carra n Agger/Skrtel/Krygiakos), crossing and hoofing the ball to the final half and expect poor Torres to become Drogba all the time......where's the Liverpool Way gone? To me, it is the style of football we play that wont make us league champion, let alone dominating the league. We're can never be either the Arsenal's pass n move or the Man U's counter-attacking style. The reason is because we have players like Lucas n Kuyt, who are either too slow for counter attacks or have bad first-touches in order to move the ball around fast. Yes, I'm blaming Rafa for it (even if he brought us the 5th Euro cup)......
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
I agree with you to a certain extent. Kuyt and Lucas are not as bad as I made out them to be. But in a top team, you'll need more than hard work to make the difference and get results. We cant fault their determination and hard work, but on the other hand, we can also look out for skillful players who are also as hardworking. IMO, I think that players who are not technically gifted can play for a top team, but ONLY in defence. A top team certainly needs midfielders and strikers who are techincally gifted to hold and pass ball or to carve out goal-scoring opportunities to win a game. It is more difficult to do that from the half-way line onwards and that's why we need better players than Lucas and Kuyt.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Kuyt may have not stepped up to the plate in recent weeks, but to dismiss him as simply a work horse is wrong. In a number of big games he has been the one who has been the difference, scoring some vital goals
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
Criticizing someones point for not being ORIGINAL on these threads is hilarious. The whole point of coming onto a forum like this is to get involved with the said DISCUSSION. Naturally their will be others posters with views similar/opposing in fact
it is possible at the moment to split the fans into 3 categories. Pro rafa,Anti rafa and not sure rafa would you agree with that? Therefore each group will be seeing things from their own perspective. If what i post has already been posted nobody has the same style or angle though they might be making the same point.The point i was making about Stevie is that he has been CONTINUALLY played out of position by Rafa simply because Rafa has not bought the right players for the right positions.This
is inexcusable considering Rafa promised after the CL success that he would build a team around Stevie and Carra as the spine of the team. This has not happened. The spine of our team has been weakened by playing Gerrard all over the fucking place when anyone with half a brain will know his best position is Central midfield and Rafa
should have given him that position and kept him in that position as he promised. How can Stevie "PASS THE BALL FORTY YARDS" when he's being played up front virtually as a second striker? or stuck out on the right or left wing. Yes he can do a job
but the point is that he shouldnt have to because he is one of the best CM's in the fucking World and cold walk into virtually any team he liked. It is a criminal waste of talent and who does Rafa prefer? Lucas, who is,and never will be, half as good as Stevie G. And in your last point you blame the yanks. Im sorry but im just not buying it. Rafa is clearly at fault its far too easy to just blame the yanks and ignore what Rafa
has been up to and i dont think its good enough.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
In a 4-2-3-1 formation that Rafa employs, the 2 winger/forwards on the either side of Gerrard are expected to score goals. He did score vital goals at some games but so did Benayoun. He rarely runs at defenders, rarely go to byline and put in dangerous crosses, rarely cut in (like what Benni does) and shoot or create goal-scoring passes and he rarely wins the ball in the air or on the ground. He shoots or head the ball stralright at gk most of the time and his first touch plus passing is shocking at crucial moments.
I won't say he's shit. He's good but I would think he's the type of player that suit a middle-table team but not a top team 1st 11. You may say he's got superb work ethics but I'll prefer someone who is also hardworking but yet much faster, has more techinque and can both score goals and provide assists. There's a reason why we're often termed as a 2 man team by our rivals and that's because we've yet to sign the 3rd one.....Aquilani perhaps? I certainly hope so.
Re: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club
There's several things wrong with this one. It doesnt give prices for the purchase or selling of many young players...just marks them as signed.There you go..
The only thing small issue is that Rafa didn't buy Cisse but he sold him..
Secondly some of the prices are wrong...for example Gonzalez was bought for £1.5m and sold for about £4m i think. on this list however, it shows him being signed for £4.5m and therefore sold at a loss.
Someone earlier posted the link for Liverpoolhistory.net which is the one i also prefer using.
http://www.liverpoolhistory.net/transfers.asp
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