Rafa Transfer FACTS....

[FatTony]

Comparisons of spend with Chelsea and Man Utd are a little unfair in that at the point Benitez came in both had better squads than us, our squad required a complete overhaul while they just needed a few minor changes.

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers and brought us closer to the top sooner. Instead he insisted on buying and selling apparent squad players, like for like a lot of them and I don't think there was any need for a lot of them.

[cream]

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 very average players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers. Just look at his first 3 seasons with us and tell me how those transfers and £80m actually improved us as a team or was it money flushed down the pan....come on look at the players he brought in. I can pick out only 2 or 3 players out of the entire first 3 seasons that were actually worth it. Thats a disgraceful return and why I don't fully agree with this whole net spend argument.

Have you forgotten that Parry was at the club also?

Alves
Simao
Vidic
Evra

are just some the names that come to mind.

[FatTony]

Have you forgotten that Parry was at the club also?

Alves
Simao
Vidic
Evra

are just some the names that come to mind.

None of us really know what went on in the background, we can only deal with the facts and the facts are the players we brought in and sold, and their transfer costs.

We may have been able to afford some of those players had Rafa not spend huge amounts on several average players anyway.

Just look at the amount of players Rafa has traded and those that are still at the club. This highlights one of the major faults with Rafa's transfer policy.

[red g]

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers and brought us closer to the top sooner. Instead he insisted on buying and selling apparent squad players, like for like a lot of them and I don't think there was any need for a lot of them.

Djibril Cisse £14m
Josemi £2m
Luis Garcia £6m
Xabi Alonso £10.5m
Antonio Nunez £2m
Mauricio Pellegrino free
Fernando Morientes £6.3m
Scott Carson £0.75m

of those 8 players he bought ......i would say there is only 2 squad fillers and a keeper in that lot? Nunez and Josemi, pelle was free

Xabi was an integral player while he was here
Luis was integral in our success
Fernando was ****e.....but we all thought he would be quality, these things ahppen but he did have genuine quality
Cisse was houillers, but again he was supposed to be top draw.

he spent 31 recouped probably about 40+ from that lot and got some genuine quality, some worked some didnt

[Exiled_red]

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers and brought us closer to the top sooner. Instead he insisted on buying and selling apparent squad players, like for like a lot of them and I don't think there was any need for a lot of them.

Although it's true that the 8 players he signed in the first summer have left, some of them were quality players which would have improved the first team

Cisse the big money buy wasn't Rafa's signing we were committed to buying him when Rafa took over, but he was still supposedly a quality striker at the time.

Alonso was around for 5 years became a key member of our team and was sold on for a huge profit. It would have been nice for him to have still been here but players move on and that's something you have to accept.

Garcia was signed to bring in some creativity and did so for a couple of season although he was frustrating at times he was a decent signing.

Morientes was a quality player all the fans were excited about a player believed at the time to be able to make a huge difference to the team, his transfer just didn't work out.

The rest were signed on the cheap as bit part players but those 3 or 4 (depending on if you count Cisse) who the majority of the budget was spent on all should have considerably improved the first team.

[red g]

[QUOTE=FatTony;1451417]None of us really know what went on in the background, we can only deal with the facts and the facts are the players we brought in and sold, and their transfer costs.

We may have been able to afford some of those players had Rafa not spend huge amounts on several average players anyway.

Just look at the amount of players Rafa has traded and those that are still at the club. This highlights one of the major faults with Rafa's transfer policy.[/QUOTE]

or the club's transfer policy?

We can only deal with facts if you want to put down the manager, as the bigger picture probably would make us symapthise with Rafa more.

and as far as i am aware it was fact that parry was a useless cunt?

[BFG]

Gross spend is the way to judge the managers dealings in relation to winning things. He has spent £200m on players. About half has been wasted, and most quite recently.

No it isn't. Net spend in any business is the only relevant figure when assesing performance. If net wasn't important then is it irrelavant that Rafa has had to sell players he wanted to keep in order to buy others? I'd say the fact that we could have Bellamy and Momo to come into our injury ravaged side at the moment is quite relevant.

I can't believe so many people have such a hard time embracing such a simple idea.

Net spend is the bottom line. Fact. Literally, fact.

[Exiled_red]

or the club's transfer policy?

We can only deal with facts if you want to put down the manager, as the bigger picture probably would make us symapthise with Rafa more.

and as far as i am aware it was fact that parry was a useless cunt?

[Exiled_red]

No it isn't. Net spend in any business is the only relevant figure when assesing performance. If net wasn't important then is it irrelavant that Rafa has had to sell players he wanted to keep in order to buy others? I'd say the fact that we could have Bellamy and Momo to come into our injury ravaged side at the moment is quite relevant.

I can't believe so many people have such a hard time embracing such a simple idea.

[BFG]

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers and brought us closer to the top sooner. Instead he insisted on buying and selling apparent squad players, like for like a lot of them and I don't think there was any need for a lot of them.

Our biggest problem at the moment is that we now have a small group of match winners but it does you no good if they're all injured, as they all are at present. You need quality in abundance and it's pretty obvious we don't pay big enough wages to keep quality players happy who aren't playing much, and it's also a hindrance when you have to sell good players to buy excellent ones. Chelsea or Man Utd would probably still have the likes of Bellamy, Momo, Crouch and Riise to call on. We've had to sell them to buy our match winners.

Rafa has always known it's a squad game and has been trying to bring quality into all areas of a squad that was very thin on it when he arrived.

[red g]

Our biggest problem at the moment is that we now have a small group of match winners but it does you no good if they're all injured, as they all are at present. You need quality in abundance and it's pretty obvious we don't pay big enough wages to keep quality players happy who aren't playing much, and it's also a hindrance when you have to sell good players to buy excellent ones. Chelsea or Man Utd would probably still have the likes of Bellamy, Momo, Crouch and Riise to call on. We've had to sell them to buy our match winners.

Rafa has always known it's a squad game and has been trying to bring quality into all areas of a squad that was very thin on it when he arrived.

i dont think its a wage thing, its just difficult that we play 1 striker and 1 behind those will always be gerrard/torres when fit, so a top player must think about coming as he would be second fiddle.

Scum/chelsea dont ahve that issue as they seem to have players who can adpt into different roles

[BFG]

i dont think its a wage thing, its just difficult that we play 1 striker and 1 behind those will always be gerrard/torres when fit, so a top player must think about coming as he would be second fiddle.

Scum/chelsea dont ahve that issue as they seem to have players who can adpt into different roles

I think wages are hugely important mate. Last season the Mancs had Tevez, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Rooney competing for two spots in most games and were able to do it because they pay huge sums of money to keep them happy.

We only pay the top top money to relatively few players compared to the other big clubs. If you're not playing much there's very little that softens the blow as much as £100,000 per week.

[barnes10]

Thats my point though, did it really? Instead of blowing his entire budget initially on 8 players (all of which have gone) he could've brought in 2 or 3 real quality players and a couple of fillers and brought us closer to the top sooner. Instead he insisted on buying and selling apparent squad players, like for like a lot of them and I don't think there was any need for a lot of them.

that is a terrible argument.
so you didnt want us to sign xabi and morientes for a combined 17mill? you also would have preferred we kept hold of cheyrou, letallc, diao, biscan etc on expensive contracts? pure genius.

[RedReet]

No it isn't. Net spend in any business is the only relevant figure when assesing performance. If net wasn't important then is it irrelavant that Rafa has had to sell players he wanted to keep in order to buy others? I'd say the fact that we could have Bellamy and Momo to come into our injury ravaged side at the moment is quite relevant.

I can't believe so many people have such a hard time embracing such a simple idea.

Reminds me of Tompkin's article last year.

TOMKINS: END SHOCKING TRANSFER MYTH
Paul Tomkins 04 March 2009

Okay, it must end NOW! I've reached breaking point. The shocking transfer myth must be put to rest, once and for all.



I've tried in the past, but the media misinformation continues to gather pace like some ill-founded rumour. It's dangerous, because it causes unjust criticism.

Let's make one thing clear: Liverpool have nowhere near the most expensive squad in the Premiership.

No. Where. Near.

Indeed, there are three clubs who have spent at least 50 per cent more on their current squad than Liverpool.

Shocked? Well, you should be if you believe what's spouted out on TV. But it's true. And one of the clubs is not a name you'd necessarily expect.

It doesn't help that some people – such as Jamie Redknapp last night – focus on Rafa's gross spend, rather than the net amount. Effectively, this means counting all the right-backs he's bought as one big outlay, rather than looking at how he's replaced one with another for roughly the same £2m fee.

Working with just the gross spend, you add the £2m of Josemi to the £2m value of Kromkamp (even though it was a swap), to the £2.6m paid for Arbeloa. But none of these players were at the club at the same time, and each was traded to get to the point where an outright success was secured, as happened with the final purchase.

So even though the total cost of getting Arbeloa was just the £2.6m paid, people will use a figure almost three times as high. That is illogical.

(Another note, Jamie: Liverpool have three right-backs on the books, not just one; but the promising Darby, like Arbeloa, was injured and Degen has had a first season ruined by various ailments. So it's wrong to criticise the manager for an unbalanced squad and playing a midfielder out of position when three right-backs are unavailable.)

It's like the housing market: you don't just go in and buy a mansion straight from school. (Okay, so maybe some footballers do, but not the normal people of this world. As someone stuck with renting, I'm speaking generally here!)

You start with an affordable house; you then use the money from selling that to buy your next property. Most people can only get to own a big house having traded their way up over a number of years.

Yet when someone asks how much you spent on your house, you don't add all the houses you've ever bought together, do you?

If you own a £220,000 house, you don't say £470,000 because you add the £90,000 starter home and the £160,000 step up. That would be moronic.

According to the excellent and reliable www.LFCHistory.net, Rafa's gross spend is approximately £188m, but his net spend is only £108m, given that around £80m has been recouped.

(I'd hazard a guess that a large proportion of the £108m net spend has also been recouped through Champions League progress rewards, particularly with the Reds being the top-ranked team based on his five-year tenure.)

So it's easy to pluck a figure of '£195m' from the air, live on air, and make it seem like that should make a team champions, or ultra-close challengers.

But it's only the cost of the current squad that counts. Because that's all a manager can choose from; he can't go back in time and select a player he sold in order to trade up, just as you can't just turn up to one of your old houses and let yourself in.

You simply cannot add Rafa having spent £5.8m on Sissoko to the £18m on Mascherano, because the two were never part of the same set-up; one was bought and sold for a profit, and as with a house, the money reinvested in a step-up. If Sissoko isn't bought and then sold, Mascherano probably doesn't arrive.

Is that really too tough to grasp?

From my own experience in writing 'Dynasty', I can attest that researching transfer fees is never easy, given the amount of undisclosed fees and various add-ons (for various things, like appearances, trophies won, national caps and the cultivation of unexpectedly daring hairstyles).

But taking each fee as the most a club has expect to pay when add-ons are activated, I've calculated the cost of the most expensive squads in the league, and listed them below.

(Note: while it's impossible to be 100 per cent accurate with the figures in the public domain, I'd say that overall it's at least 95 per cent of the true amount, and with rival teams I've actually been generous and excluded a couple of players whose cost just isn't listed anywhere I could find.)

The most expensive squads (excluding players out on long-term loan) are as follows:

Chelsea £207m
Manchester United £206m*
Spurs £188m
Manchester City £140m
Liverpool £127m

(*£226m if Carlos Tevez's deal made permanent, given that it is initially a unique two-year £10m agreement, and very different from 99.9 of transfer deals. Effectively United are winning games with a £30m player.)

So what does this tell us?

Let's start with the leaders. United's squad contains the most home-grown players, such as Giggs, Scholes, Neville, O'Shea, Brown and Fletcher, who all arrived for free.

So that shows that it is a long-established core supplemented by a lot of expensive signings added one by one to a unified collection. In other words, classic, spot-on building of a squad when already established at the very top.

But it shows that even if you work with the unfair use of Rafa's gross spend, it still doesn't match what Ferguson has spent on his current squad, let alone those who have been bought and sold for record fees in the past.

And this is utterly, utterly critical, and beyond the grasp of some people who cannot analyse things with common sense.

After all, what does it matter how much Rafa has spent since 2004 if Ferguson is currently fielding players like Ferdinand (£30m) and Ronaldo (£12.8m) who were bought before then?

Isn't Rafa – in the real world – competing with a team whose construction started well before he arrived?

Unless Ferguson is banned from fielding players like Ferdinand and Ronaldo (which would be illogical), or forced to start from scratch in 2004 (again illogical), it is not a fair comparison, is it? – I mean, come on, use your brain for a second here.

After all, how much as Harry Redknapp spent since he took over at Spurs? I make it almost £50m. How much has Rafa spent since Harry Redknapp took over at Spurs? Nothing. But only a nutter would compare the two in this deeply skewed way.

Rafa has been in his job about five times as long as Harry, so you obviously wouldn't dare compare their teams. And yet Ferguson has been in his job about five times as long as Rafa, and yet the Spaniard is expected to have Liverpool as champions by now.

Chelsea and Spurs are actually the more interesting examples in many ways. I knew Spurs had spent a lot, but to have a current squad that cost almost £200m shocked me. Add together the cost of Bentley, Pavyluchenko, Palacios, Bale, Defoe, Bent, Keane and Modric and you more-or-less end up with the cost of Liverpool's entire squad.

I could be sarcastic – or media-style sensationalistic – and say that with that much spent, any manager should be able to win almost all of his matches, but it wouldn't be fair or logical. It's far more complex than that, and even a good manager like Redknapp has his work cut out.

Chelsea and Spurs have had seven managers between them since 2007. This means different men making expensive signings and ending up with a mixed squad. Based on expenditure, both of these clubs are massively underachieving this season. Almost certainly to blame for that is the hierarchy having itchy fingers when it comes to firing managers.

Of course, this analysis doesn't include wages, either. You don't get the very top players in the world without also having to pay them a king's ransom. Michael Ballack must be most expensive free transfer ever, with wages reported to be around £130,000 a week, or about £30m over five years. Again, Liverpool are no way near the highest payers, either.

So there you have it. By all means print it out and pass it around; 'pass it on', as the saying goes, including to those in the media who could do with reading it. By all means quibble over some of the finer details, as there is a tolerance of a few percent on the accuracy of the figures, but the overall gist is very much sound and robust.

Note: as all good schoolteachers tell you to do, my workings are there to see, and will be available to view on my website.

[CJ]

from my point of view there are a few things to take into account when looking at Rafas success or lack or success in the transfer market.

The squad he took over

The money available to him at each window

Rafas love of players who can play in multiple positions

The ones we missed out on

Did rafa not have the money to suddenly up the quality of the squad?

did he have to incrimentaly improve the squad (so replace a player with one only slightly better?)