was / is keane worth 20 million?

[Kenneth]

No interest in a general knock of Rafa's transfers. All managers have a similar mix of success and failure. You have to go through a lot of players to find the right team, and never really get there.

Keane and the persuit of Barry were major chuff ups imo. Barry for 15 odd million was nearly criminal and a part of my rafa love died forever when it was confirmed. Add in Keane at 20 million and it's a pretty torrid affair. I've said it before, but if Keane doesn't come good, he could spell the end of Rafa. 20 million pound purchses at a club like ours are that high risk.

[Woobus]

For everyone of those great buys I could name you two who have flopped. Look at some of the inept performances v Fulham and Spurs in the League CUp - are you telling me Rafa's scouting is all it should be? I thought the whole point of buying Prem proven players was so they wouldn't need time to settle-in, so that they could hit the ground running? If we want to win the league we can't afford to sit around and wait for the passangers in our team to settle in.

How many of the so called flops cost us big money? Nearly all of them have been sold for near enough what they were bought for and a lot for more.
I dont buy into this Keane has been crap for us, certainly hasnt scored enough goals but without Torres he helped us to keep on winning. Look at last season when Torres was out, we were shocking in the final third which hasnt been the case this year.
Of course you have to let the new players settle in, look at United with Berbatov. Cost a hell of a lot more and has been pretty much the same level as Keane apart from Keane fights for the ball when he isnt playing well.
So how long would you give a player to settle in before selling him or calling him a waste of money?

[Skillz]

Crouch was contributing far more than Keane is, goals or no.

Debatable

No interest in a general knock of Rafa's transfers. All managers have a similar mix of success and failure. You have to go through a lot of players to find the right team, and never really get there.

Keane and the persuit of Barry were major chuff ups imo. Barry for 15 odd million was nearly criminal and a part of my rafa love died forever when it was confirmed. Add in Keane at 20 million and it's a pretty torrid affair. I've said it before, but if Keane doesn't come good, he could spell the end of Rafa. 20 million pound purchses at a club like ours are that high risk.

We don't know how that would of turned out, he is doing ok for Villa. More importantly though, Xabi is kicking ****ing arse for us

[red g]

Debatable



We don't know how that would of turned out, he is doing ok for Villa. More importantly though, Xabi is kicking ****ing arse for us

How can people have a go at Rafa for nearly selling Alonso? personally see it as a masterstroke!!

has alonso been poor for 2 seasons ? generally yes!

has Alonso been brilliant this year? Yes

Well surely Rafa's Treatment worked?

[red g]

Rafa has not had a 8million+ pound failure yet from my memory. That is pretty googd going to say he has been here for a few seasons now.

he has paid relatively big money for 3 defenders and 2 have been Awesome and errrr well 2 out of 3 aint bad

[Skillz]

How can people have a go at Rafa for nearly selling Alonso? personally see it as a masterstroke!!

has alonso been poor for 2 seasons ? generally yes!

has Alonso been brilliant this year? Yes

Well surely Rafa's Treatment worked?

Well Rafa was offered 12M GBP for Xabi and duly told Claudio to do one.

Who values Xabi the most?

[dww]

No we don't know the details, but I do believe we have paid around double of what the player is worth, so unless we end up paying substantially less than the £20m I think we have grossly overspent. Now of course, if we end up winning the league or the CL with Keane in playing a valuable part in our team/squad, then he would be a very cheap purchase. However, IMO he was not what we needed and I don't think he advances our squad or team to any great degree and the good performances have been very few and far between so far. I admit he hasn't been helped by being played in alien positions however.

As for the extra £7m-£10m, I give you Dossena and Ngog.

I really think we needed to buy another LB. Aurelio is good but will break by the end of the season. Maybe it hasn't worked yet either but as with Keane I think Dossena has to be given time.

In some ways I agree that he wasn't what we needed but we did need a forward whose style would complement Torres and who could also take his place if needs be. Keane did/does satisfy those requirements at least theoretically. I know he hasn't worked with Torres so far but you can see why before hand the idea was appealing.

[Sarb]

How can people have a go at Rafa for nearly selling Alonso? personally see it as a masterstroke!!

has alonso been poor for 2 seasons ? generally yes!

has Alonso been brilliant this year? Yes

Well surely Rafa's Treatment worked?

The first season for a player in a new league or country is sometimes pretty good. That's because not many people know about him. I wouldn't say he's been poor for 2 seasons. He was in and out for much of last season because of a broken foot on two occasions. That's what some people overlooked when Rafa wanted to ditch him

Personally I see it as he got lucky because if Arsenal had bid £14m for him then I think they'd have got him and would be in a lot better state

And while we're on it. I think Alonso should be the first name on the teamsheet in central midfield because for me he's even eclipsing Mascherano who has been poor of late.

[The Birdman]

Top of the league hey with very little contribution from the likes of Keane, Dossena and Babel.
Torres and Gerrard both been out for spells with injuries, our best early season defender (Skertel) out for a couple of months.
Thank **** the rest of rafa's **** buys have luckily kept us at the top of the league. Just imagine how much better we'll be with Keane settled, Torres and Gerrard injury free with games behind them, Skertel back fit, Babel contributing.


We're in a terrible state this season aren't we

[red g]

The first season for a player in a new league or country is sometimes pretty good. That's because not many people know about him. I wouldn't say he's been poor for 2 seasons. He was in and out for much of last season because of a broken foot on two occasions. That's what some people overlooked when Rafa wanted to ditch him

Personally I see it as he got lucky because if Arsenal had bid £14m for him then I think they'd have got him and would be in a lot better state

And while we're on it. I think Alonso should be the first name on the teamsheet in central midfield because for me he's even eclipsing Mascherano who has been poor of late.

a good manager is a lucky one

[Dhav]

I really think we needed to buy another LB. Aurelio is good but will break by the end of the season. Maybe it hasn't worked yet either but as with Keane I think Dossena has to be given time.

In some ways I agree that he wasn't what we needed but we did need a forward whose style would complement Torres and who could also take his place if needs be. Keane did/does satisfy those requirements at least theoretically. I know he hasn't worked with Torres so far but you can see why before hand the idea was appealing.

I agree we needed a left back, if only because Aurelio is injury prone and we lost another one in Riise. If Insua was not capable of deputising then we needed to sign one. Having said that, having been at the game at WHL in the League Cup v Spurs I must say that Dossena and Degen on that night produced the two worst displays from a pair of fullbacks I have ever seen. £7m spent on him looks like a criminal waste of money, almost as much as the money spunked away on Lucas.

Lucas gets the nod for me as the biggest waste of cash because he is completely superfluous given we have three players in his position who are world class and far superior to him, and we have two youngsters in Plessis and Spearing who cost next to nothing and are probably equally as good as him. Plus that's not to mention that Lucas was not replacing a completely incompetent ****wit that Dossena was.

I agree we needed another forward but I would have been quite happy to have moved Babel to that position and signed a creative midfielder, either for the left or more particularly for the right. Babel I think it is clear prefers to play in the middle and he has been underused this season.

[Woobus]

Lucas gets the nod for me as the biggest waste of cash because he is completely superfluous given we have three players in his position who are world class and far superior to him, and we have two youngsters in Plessis and Spearing who cost next to nothing and are probably equally as good as him. Plus that's not to mention that Lucas was not replacing a completely incompetent ****wit that Dossena was.

It is still far to early to judge Dossena or Degen with Dossena only playing 10 games for us and Degen 2.
I can accept your view on Lucas even if I dont totally agree with it as he has had plenty of game time. What I find weird is not many people were complaining about Lucas last season when he had a good run in the team. This season he has only had bit parts and the lack of game time shows. As last year showed he is a better player than he has shown this year. As you say we have plenty of cover in midfield so I would probably loan him out and see how he gets on when playing regulary.

[Tee]

Something has happened to Robbie Keane - he is slowly starting to remind me of Harry Kewell in that both came to us with huge expecations, look great on the very rare occasions when they get it right but generally look out of their depth in the team and do not seem to have any self confidence.

I cannot explain some of the chances Keane is missing and his general play has been poor by his own standards. Yet we are still doing very well so he must be bringing something to the table right?

This is a really difficult one but I would revert to Gerrard and Torres up front, put Alonso and Mascher in the middle and bring Keane on as a sub with a point to prove (to himself more than anyone else right now).

[barnes10]

keane is helping our attack in the same way as riera. balance, an outlet and an extra problem for opposing defenders to handle.

however when it comes to finishing, keane has been pretty poor there's no argument there.

but then every player has had poor spells and i think we are judging robbie based on torres' excellent start to his lfc career.

robbie is trying too hard. thats why he misses the glaring chances. it'll happen for him but the lad needs a bit of time. whether he turns into a kuyt or a torres is too early to judge. clearly looking like the former at the moment tho isnt it and he'll probably end up somewhere in between. a 15-20 goal a season forward.

[RedReet]

No.

Right now he should be benched because Kuyt, Gerrard, Torres and Riera is better than him.

He should act as cover if anyone of the above gets injured/banned. He should be made to fight for his place in the same way as Agger did or like Babel is now doing.

To be fair he was deputising for Nando while he was injured and was probably only on on Saturday because Gerrard was injured.


And for everyone that thinks that because we spent £20m he should be a instant success scoring every week, he's how other teams fared this summer spending over £10m...

Nasri - £11m
Milner £12.5m
Elmander £11m
Bosingwa £16.2m
Jo £19m
Robinho £32.5m
Berbatov £31m
Crouch £11m
Modric £16.5m
Bentley £15m
Pavlyuchenko £14m