Voronin....

[MrMichael]

im not a scout, nor do i play FM. I don't know which wingers were available and which were not. What i do know is those two have pretty much contributed **** all to this season, and that 13 million quid could have been used in this summers budget. These kind of signings are exactly why we have outspent man utd, yes out spent man utd but have a bench filled with **** players while man utd have a bench of 15 million plus players. They purchase quality, we purchase **** and lots of it. And then have the cheek to moan about being poor.

Lucas was a pointless signing - at the time we had gerrard, masher, alonso and sissoko (none of us knew just how **** he was going to get) so don't no i don't believe we needed him to cover for injury.

Bollocks. How can you say on one hand that we've outspent ManU, then on the other that they have a bench full of £15m players? Any figures that pertain to show we've outspent ManU are selective, innacurate and unrepresentative of both of our starting positions in terms of players, and our relative finances.

Benayon's contributed reasonably well to this season imo. The goals and assists charts show that. And Lucas has the potential to be a genuine quality player in time. Plus, do a search on here for "Sissoko" posts before last summer, believe me plenty of people "knew how **** he was going to get".

And as for purchasing **** and lots of it, in the last 12 months we've signed 2 world class players (Torres and Mascherano) and one genuine potentially class player (Babel). That's pretty good going, and the gap that still remains after those shows just how far we have to come to try to catch up

[frank the tank]

If we assume 30k/week is accurate, well I'd surmise that most of our squad will be on atleast that, and considering there was no transfer fee, paying him that for one year is really a minor concern. How long were we paying Salif Diao's 50k/week wages for? I believe we were also paying Diouf's the first 2 years he was at Bolton.

We tried to buy Alves and Simao several times, and each time the price was raised beyone what we could apparently afford at the time. That was not Benitez fault, if anyone's it was Rick Parry's, or the boards for not affording us enough cash. The Pennant signing was one of Benitez most bemusing moments, but Pennant had had a good season the previous year, and I do believe that Rafa thought he needed to buy players who knew what the Premiership was all about, plus that was about all we could afford.

Every manager makes bad buys, and "wastes" money. I know where you're coming from, but I do believe this to be a far lesser problem under Benitez than it ever was under previous managers at Anfield. Benitez has moved failed players on generally very quickly, and we really haven't had to take a really significant loss on anyone under him, at least none that couldn't be counter balanced by potential profits on other players. With hindsight its very very easy for us to go £7m Pennant + £5m Benayoun + £6m Lucas = £18m Alves (or whatever), but that doesn't mean that in practice the transfer market is so easy. What if Alves had come over and been **** in this league, then everyone would be criticising Rafa for putting all his eggs in one basket.

i actually agree with all your points above...

but i just think that now is the perfect time for rafa to adopt the approach of where quality is required instead of quantity.... lets be honest... insua proved today that riise is not needed.... i really feel that if we sell 6 players that dont offer much (the usual suspects) and sign 2 players of top quality and maybe 1 or 2 free transfer squad players (degen) then we will progress a huge amount.....

also, i think that we are much closer than a lot of people realise to being a top top top team....agger out for the season and alonso's niggling injuries really hampered us this season i feel..... i actually think that we have huge huge potential and it is very exciting.... i can see babel being a class class player...

and also i feel that we have a potentially world class defensive partnership for the next 7 or so years in agger and skrtel.....all for under the price of a paulo ferreria!!!!

[MrMichael]

Next season, picture the scene.... we are at home to stoke and are 4-0 up with 60mins gone (swap this seasons derby with next seasons stoke!) and with a midweek champions league game coming up, rafa decides to take off kuyt, torres and gerrard..... personally, i would prefer us to bring on players like nemeth, plessis and spearing rather than the likes of voronin, pennent and riise.....

Yeah ok, I get you there.

There's a fine balance to be struck between giving youth a chance, and putting too much pressure/emphasis on them. Those squad fillers were necessary this season perhaps, hopefully to cover the development of our youth players, who I would also much rather see being given a chance once they are ready (next season).

[andyinswinton]

We would be better cutting the squad by around six to eight players and buying three quality players instead. If needs be, throw a reserve in now and again. Insua played well today and Plessis looked fine in his appearances. There is no reason to believe that others can't come in and do well.

We've brought in Torres, Mascherano and Babel, if we brought in players of the similar quality in the summer, there is no reason not to believe we can't win the league next season.

[frank the tank]

We would be better cutting the squad by around six to eight players and buying three quality players instead. If needs be, throw a reserve in now and again. Insua played well today and Plessis looked fine in his appearances. There is no reason to believe that others can't come in and do well.

We've brought in Torres, Mascherano and Babel, if we brought in players of the similar quality in the summer, there is no reason not to believe we can't win the league next season.

[barnes10]

So you don't think the 13 million spent on lucas and benayoun should have gone towards a high calibre winger?

which high calbre winger can you buy for 13 mill?

lucas has enabled us to bring in 8mill from sissoko. benayoun is a good player.

yes we have to go for top class but to say rafa has wasted his budget is totally dumb.

[Chrono]

Oh ffs, I despair sometimes.

Every manager signs dodgy players. Every single one. Don;t make me list the Grimandis and Cygan's Wenger's played, or Djemba-Djembas and Fortunes Whiskey nose inexplicably gave outings to.

He was a free transfer, brought in when it looked like we had no funds to be a cover striker for a season. Does anyone have the stats on how many starts he's made this year... if its a dozen I'll be surprised.

I'm sure he'll be gone in the summer, Rafa's moved on nearly every buy he's made that hasn;t worked out very fast.... but it makes no sense whatsoever just to dump those players mid season as they're what we're stuck with till the summer - Morientes, Josemi, Kromkamp, Nunez, Pellegrino - all played right up to the day before they were sold virtually.

Bringing Voronin on as a sub, probably to help him regain fitness after a long layoff so as to assist his ability to pass a fitness test elsewhere in the summer, has absolutely nothing to do with Benitez ability to win the title. ****'s sake, anyone would think it was an easy thing to do listening to some people on here. "Supporters" my arse.

Thank christ there is some sense around here. I see these last two games going as the following:

1) Shop window
2) Development of youth players

[marcus50bucks]

That's harsh.

Mad Erik was much worse as was Paul Stewart.

Feed The Crow and his waistline will grow.

[frank the tank]

getting back to the original point.... i think we can all agree on the original point made....


VORONIN IS ****!

[SK]

getting back to the original point.... i think we can all agree on the original point made....


VORONIN IS ****!

so one could say morientes is ****e just because he didn't hack it at liverpool...mind you voronin was a decent player at leverkusen over a couple of years. and the amount of matches he got this year he actually didn't have a chance to impress, though he had a decent first month or so before he got injured! but he has to go in the summer and any transfer fee we get from that in a pure profit.

[Jayesh87]

I'd rather see Jordy Brouwer get a game than Voronin

[Johnny]

so one could say morientes is ****e just because he didn't hack it at liverpool...mind you voronin was a decent player at leverkusen over a couple of years. and the amount of matches he got this year he actually didn't have a chance to impress, though he had a decent first month or so before he got injured! but he has to go in the summer and any transfer fee we get from that in a pure profit.

Good post.

[frank the tank]

so one could say morientes is ****e just because he didn't hack it at liverpool...mind you voronin was a decent player at leverkusen over a couple of years. and the amount of matches he got this year he actually didn't have a chance to impress, though he had a decent first month or so before he got injured! but he has to go in the summer and any transfer fee we get from that in a pure profit.

voronin was an okay player at bayer leverkusen..... put it this way, i dont think that he had his pick of any club in europe. I would think that his name was mentioned to rafa by a scout or agent and it was a case of a very low risk move so at the time it made sense.... it's not as if voronin was prolific in the bundesliga

to compare him with a player that did it at the top level for years at real madrid and then went on loan to monaco and became leading scorer in the champions league - all whilst playing for the spanish national side is a bit unbalanced in my view....

but fundamentally we are in agreement - he was a low risk transfer, free, and it didnt work out..... diouf had a good first month too for liverpool but sometimes it takes opposing managers time to work out how to handle players....

[kev776]

Veronin came on today for one of the few chances he has had this season, So giving that, one would expect a bit of rustiness etc, but what is not forgivable is the complete lack of effort he showed. On one occasion even Kuyt outsprinted him to a ball in the corner, and his feeble attempts at passing made even my 14 year old son grimmace.

If he was trying to impress potential buyers or the current management, he has a strange way of showing it. Like all players he gets a fair crack of the whip from me, but his lack of effort is criminal. Kuyty will never win a race in his life or outshine Messi with his skills but by Christ he does do a job.

[Nic83]

Im actually beginning to think I'm deluded and voronin is not in fact a footballer