1st team transfers since 2007

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

Rafa has been around for more than 2 years so I really don't see why we are judging just those to years.

[Guest]

Dont read my posts mate.

If being tedious was a crime, you'd be doing a life stretch.

You should really get something to do when you're bored. Mine is being tedious beyond a 'life's stretch'.

[FatTony]

As far as i can see, we've signed 15 players (at a cost of £95m) for the 1st team squad in the last 2 years:

Arbeloa £2.5m
Babel £11m
Benayoun £6m
Degen Free
Dossena £8m
Itandje Free
Keane £20m
Leto £2.5m
Lucas £6.5m
N'gog £1.5m
Plessis Free
Riera £11m
Skrtel £6m
Torres £20m
Voronin Free

Of that 15, how many have been an unquestionable success?

I make it 4 (in bold) and Benayoun might be being generous.

Does that add weight to the 'quantity over quality' criticism or not?

Worrying ratio, given the money spent?

Riera was 7 or 8 million, not 11.

On the whole I agree, Rafa has brought in a large amount of average players. I somtimes think he'd have been better off keeping some of the average players we had and spent a lot of our money on players who would've made a real impact.

[red g]

As far as i can see, we've signed 15 players (at a cost of £95m) for the 1st team squad in the last 2 years:

Arbeloa £2.5m
Babel £11m
Benayoun £6m
Degen Free
Dossena £8m
Itandje Free
Keane £20m
Leto £2.5m
Lucas £6.5m
N'gog £1.5m
Plessis Free
Riera £11m
Skrtel £6m
Torres £20m
Voronin Free

Of that 15, how many have been an unquestionable success?

I make it 4 (in bold) and Benayoun might be being generous.

Does that add weight to the 'quantity over quality' criticism or not?

Worrying ratio, given the money spent?

Ok, on the flip side.....how many have been failures? and how much could he selll that lot for? More than what he bought them for! hardly a failure

[Tee]

As far as i can see, we've signed 15 players (at a cost of £95m) for the 1st team squad in the last 2 years:

Arbeloa £2.5m Current market value: £6-8m
Babel £11m £8-10m
Benayoun £6m £6-8m
Degen Free £1-2m
Dossena £8m £5-7m
Itandje Free £1m
Keane £20m £15m
Leto £2.5m £2-3m
Lucas £6.5m £5-7m
N'gog £1.5m £3m
Plessis Free £3m
Riera £11m £8-10m
Skrtel £6m £12-15m
Torres £20m £50m
Voronin Free £5m (considering current form lol)

So, as I see it, out of the 15 listed the 11 who you do not think have made it were purchased for a collective fee of approx. £60.5m but their value as I see it right now is approx. £66m max or £53m min.

Effectively we could still recoup all the money back on those players, and arguably some of them will still improve thus their value will still go up. Not exactly throwing money away IMO.

Also, of those players I would say several will still make it, e.g. Babel, Benni, Riera and possibly Lucas.

[Craig_H]

Tee, your valuations are laughable mate - you even laughed at one of them yourself.

Try not looking at it from a biased point of view, and bearing in mind the current market climate:

Arbeloa £4m
Babel £7m
Benayoun £5m
Degen £1m
Dossena £4m
Itandje Nothing
Keane sold for £12m ish
Leto £1.5m
Lucas £3m
N'gog £2m
Plessis £2m
Riera £6m
Skrtel £8m
Torres £35m (Unless it was Man City)
Voronin £2m

[Tee]

How much did Rafa get for Momo?

He could have got rid of Itandje for nothing in the Summer but wanted the fee so he will not let anyone go for silly money, IMO.

[Craig_H]

Yeah but it's not about what you'd sell for, it's about what someone would pay.

[Guest]

Yeah but it's not about what you'd sell for, it's about what someone would pay.

How you'd know that mate?

You're basing your assumptions on highly hypothetical data. In short, you're taking an educated guess.

Edit: Yes it's about what other clubs want to pay for a player but the figures you gave are hypothetical.

[Craig_H]

Yeah but unlike people like yourself, i dont let my bias cloud my judgement.

[EwarWoo]

Yeah but it's not about what you'd sell for, it's about what someone would pay.

Well, it is, because if you'll only sell a player for 4m, he's worth 4m to your team and that's his value.

[Nicey]

As far as i can see, we've signed 15 players (at a cost of £95m) for the 1st team squad in the last 2 years:

Arbeloa £2.5m
Babel £11m
Benayoun £6m
Degen Free
Dossena £8m
Itandje Free
Keane £20m
Leto £2.5m
Lucas £6.5m
N'gog £1.5m
Plessis Free
Riera £11m
Skrtel £6m
Torres £20m
Voronin Free

Of that 15, how many have been an unquestionable success?

I make it 4 (in bold) and Benayoun might be being generous.

Does that add weight to the 'quantity over quality' criticism or not?

Worrying ratio, given the money spent?

Another way to look at it ... the madness of the Keane transfer saga to one side .. How many of them players are not worth more .. or if we were to sell them all today would be quids in ... I am sure you will agree we would ...considerably

[MrMichael]

As far as i can see, we've signed 15 players (at a cost of £95m) for the 1st team squad in the last 2 years:

Arbeloa £2.5m
Babel £11m
Benayoun £6m
Degen Free
Dossena £8m
Itandje Free
Keane £20m
Leto £2.5m
Lucas £6.5m
N'gog £1.5m
Plessis Free
Riera £11m
Skrtel £6m
Torres £20m
Voronin Free

Of that 15, how many have been an unquestionable success?

I make it 4 (in bold) and Benayoun might be being generous.

Does that add weight to the 'quantity over quality' criticism or not?

Worrying ratio, given the money spent?

Ok, well this is quite a subjective discussion being had here imo, and I personally think you're just slightly over-egging things in one direction. In some cases it is not necessarily fair to make a success/failure judgement yet, and in others the level of risk taken is well worth noting. However, there is no doubt in my mind that last summer was verging on the disasterous in transfer terms, so myself I think it makes more sense to break them down into specific seasons, and when you do that things look a little different....

07 - 08

Definite success

Torres £20m
Mascherano £17m
Benayoun £6m
Skrtel £6m
Arbeloa £2.5m

Not so successful

Babel £11m
Lucas £6.5m
Leto £2.5m
Plessis Free
Voronin Free
Itandje Free

Really, there's not a lot wrong with that is there? Over £50m spent on "successes" and about £20m on others, of whom Babel takes up a sizeable chunk of that money.

I think most people can see why we bought Babel, the lad flagrantly has talent, but has not developed this season (after a good start in the last one) into the player we all hoped he would become. I'd be interested to know whether you'd think that one was an acceptable risk Craig, personally I think it was - and there still is the chance, abeit not as strong-looking a one as 12 months ago, that he could make it at Anfield.

Of the other "failures", Plessis and Leto are really massively unfair to judge yet, Plessis due to his age and Leto for that and his permit issues. I think even the best manager in the world in the transfer market brings in some youngish talent for small fees that don't really make it. Free transfer Itjande was rubbish, but was entirely brought in as back-up when Dudek left (we had to have someone), and Voronin, the other free, well, if he keeps it up in Germany could turn into a nice little earner for us.

That only leaves Lucas, who was possibly the strangest transfer thats season, simply due to our glut of alternative players in that position. However, having won Brazilian player of the year at 20 years old, well, was that an acceptable risk too? Had things turned out differently mightn't we have been on here crying about why on earth Rafa didn't sign him when he had the chance? I dunno, maybe. Also, he's still young, you never know what might happen in the future.

Anyway, I don't think the quantity over quality argument works with that season's transfers at all. The £20m you could say was "wasted" and would have been better spent on one "quality" player was only actually spent on 2, Babel and Lucas, both young and potentially very talented, the rest were either necessary free squad fillers who could make us some cash in the long term, or not really intended for the first team squad straight away. When compared with the list of successes, I think what is effectively 5 out of 7 being worth it, and the other 2 still having at least something of a chance of turning things around in future, is actually a pretty good success rate, so your argument doesn't really hold water there.

The problem, and the bit you probably are right about, is the 2008 transfers. Remembering of course that less than a full season is not necessarily enough time to make such judgements, certainly on "unquestionable successes"....

08 - 09

Possible successes

Riera Was no more than £8m, not £11m
Cavalieri £2m
N'gog £1.5m

Failures

Keane £20m
Dossena £8m
Degen Free

In terms of money spent that's pretty disasterous as I said before. I think we can give N'gog a break, tbh £1.5m looks a very acceptable risk for the lad to me, and I think he could go on to be a pretty decent player in time. Cavalieri seems a perfectly adequate back-up keeper, I think we'd struggle to do much better for someone who is only ever going to play second fiddle, and corrects the Itjande **** up. And Riera, well, jury is still out a bit, he's technically a good player, and I think as good as most other left wingers in the league (who, especially if English, would have cost us significantly more I think), but is he really good enough? That I'm not sure of, but I'm not happy calling him a failure yet though either.

Degen - well, always injured, probably not that good anyway, although he was a free I'll still go with a failure, Dossena is simply rubbish and not as good as the other 2 LB's we had at the club already imo - we could easily have done without either of those signings. And then there's Keane.

Now I know you're talking "unquestionable" successes, and really none of those 6 qualify as that, but I would say only 3 of them really are appropriate to consider in such terms (Dossena, Riera and Keane), and one of those (Riera) still could end up being a pretty good purchase given proper time to prove it (or not as the case may be). Certainly, of £40m spent almost £30m of that was on ****-ups (most of which has been or will be recouped however, but that hardly helps us on the pitch). Once again, not sure we're looking at quantity v quality, just that the players of supposed quality brought in didn't do what we needed them to.

So, basically, the conculsion of my essay is that things aren't quite as black and white as you're making out, and that rather than the issue be quality v quantity, the prime issue in the period you're talking about is one summer where things really went pretty badly wrong in the market.



Oh, and btw, you're sooooo banned if you answer all that with some glib one-liner! :bird:

[Guest]

Yeah but unlike people like yourself, i dont let my bias cloud my judgement.

How can it cloud my judgment when all rationality points against you 'unbiased' people?

I'm a proponent of rationality, and there is no case against Rafa whatsoever. All members of the anti-Rafa brigade are just grasping at thin air.

This is all done tongue in cheek Syd.

[MrMichael]

How can it cloud my judgment when all rationality points against you 'unbiased' people?

I'm a proponent of rationality, and there is no case against Rafa whatsoever. All members of the anti-Rafa brigade are just grasping at thin air.

Right, that's it, I have a proposal......

* Anyone that uses the phrase "rcdnw" in an argument automatically loses the debate. If they do it twice, they get a week in the sinbin.

* Anyone that uses the phrase "anti-Rafa brigade" however, gets exactly the same.

Both are completely nonsensical. Its about bloody time people on here started accepting shades of grey rather than everything being black and white (its like a bloody Geordie forum at times, lol) - there's perfectly valid viewpoints imo both in remaining in support of Rafa, and questioning his leadership.

We haven't been performing well enough on the pitch for the last few months, even putting results aside we too often look a bit clueless in attack and our football does not even come close to being what it should be at times, hence people who want the best for the club are pretty disillusioned. However, the alternative view that says Rafa is still the right man for the job, has returned us to our rightful place in Europe at least, and with proper support from the club etc is still as likely if not more so than anyone else to bring us no.19, also has pretty good grounding.

Ultimately, we all want the best, and the most success possible, for Liverpool FC, if we disagree on how to get that fine, its just about specifics, and perfectly natural, but people better damn well stop lumping everyone in under those 2 utterly meaningless and artificial groupings before I get really pissed off and do some really crazy things with the word filter!!!