Liverpool FC Forum

[tubby]

Can't see anyone buying him for even 60% of what we paid tbh mate, not even the big Italian clubs. Then again if we get rid of quick then i guess we dont pay those add ons which did make up a lot of that 20mil right? Can someone break it down for me?

Seriously now
The lads took part in 9 prem games and had 2 assists
Is this bad?

Hey I like the guy, I was just speaking hypothetically entertaining the poster above me.

[Owzat]

Well Aquilani has certainly made his mark - on the bench. scratched his name into it pending the club being able to afford a name plate.

Since his Premiership debut 17 games ago, he has started FOUR games, come off the bench five times and been left on it six times. This is what Rafa does with a £20m signing. If he can't find a place for him in the starting XI then what a waste of £20m, I quite like Lucas but ffs why spend £20m on a creative player to leave him on the bench so that a water carrier can play?!?!? Perhaps Rafa will, given time, convert him into a winger or full-back or off-the-bench striker. How many players played in their designated position yesterday, that which they played in before joining LFC?

[only me]

Well Aquilani has certainly made his mark - on the bench. scratched his name into it pending the club being able to afford a name plate.

Since his Premiership debut 17 games ago, he has started FOUR games, come off the bench five times and been left on it six times. This is what Rafa does with a £20m signing. If he can't find a place for him in the starting XI then what a waste of £20m, I quite like Lucas but ffs why spend £20m on a creative player to leave him on the bench so that a water carrier can play?!?!? Perhaps Rafa will, given time, convert him into a winger or full-back or off-the-bench striker. How many players played in their designated position yesterday, that which they played in before joining LFC?

I know the owners aren't the most appreciated people in Anfield ,and i agree ,but if i was to advice them is to summon Rafa for a small chat and challenge him on his signing/scouting performance - his last mega signings (Keane/Aqua) ,more then 40million ,are total loss so far - for me in the current financial climate this is totally unacceptable.

I mean to fail with medium range yet pricey players ,Dossena/Babel ,is painful but can be absorbed ,but throwing more then 40 and getting no results whatsoever ,it's more then concerning...

[Reg]

The Independant newspaper have rolled out the usual page filler of the Worst Trasnfer Ever and whilst nothing worthy of note, one theme caught my eye - the number of failed transfer of lads coming from Italy to the UK.  This Bluenose one is spookily close to our own situation with Aquaboy:

Per Kroldrup, Udinese to Everton, £5m, June 2005
A mysterious one? a substantial fee, followed by no desire to actually give him a game. Whatever failings he showed in training, they were significant enough for the club to offer him just the one appearance, before sending him on his way. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport....&ino=14

Tell me it isnt so............

[Rush Job]

If rafa doesnt fancy him for whatever reason he`ll be sold in the summer. I dont think that will be the case though.

[Fowler_E7]

why was Aquilani signed if Rafa has no plan for him? seems so pointless and a complete waste of money, when we are in a situation where every penny counts

[Sir Roger]

He truly works in mysterious ways...

[Owzat]

why was Aquilani signed if Rafa has no plan for him? seems so pointless and a complete waste of money, when we are in a situation where every penny counts

I've made this point many times before, all it ever gets countered with is the "safety net" answer of Rafa gets no money. But that totally ignores that what he does spend, and that's money the "we have no money" brigade can't deny, not without talking about "net spending" and all the other nonsense they spout.

We spent £39m in the summer, of that £39m we paid over the top for Johnson £17.5m and £20m for Aquilani. Johnson played 17 of the first 20 Premiership games and none since, maybe a good signing but certainly a lot of our budget went towards him - albeit many reckon that £7m of it was money owed, it was still expensive and we won't get the £7m back (or for Crouch, whichever way you want to dress it up we lost £7m in the bargain) Aquilani has played just nine times in the Premiership since his debut in that competition 17 games ago.

Add that to last season when we spent around £39m on Keane £20.3m who was sold back in six months, £8m on Riera who was acclaimed early on but then faded and is now more of a squad player, and £7m on Dossena who has been sold having been bought with a purpose in mind but never fitted in - yet Rafa didn't see the warning signs when signing his next Italian. We also spent £3m on a back-up keeper, quite why I don't know when so many keepers move about for nothing. So all in all our best signings of the past two seasons are probably Kyrgiakos £1.5m, N'Gog £1.5m and Rodriguez, or put another way our worst three signings were three of the four most expensive signings and our three best signings were three for the four cheapest - had to be "of the four" because Degen was free and Riera cost £1m more than Dossena.

Rafa hit the bullseye with Torres, but his spending over £11m has been very wayward indeed. Some will argue Mascherano was worth the £18.6m we paid for him, but to be honest I reckon if Torres were the only player over £11m he'd bought, and we'd kept Sissoko or Alonso then we'd not be any the worse off and quite probably better off as he seems less extravagant with his spending under £11m and occaisionally lands a real gem. Maybe now he has spent five years in England his knowledge of the European market is just too out of date and his scouting poor, who knows?

But as you said, we can't afford to keep making big blunders like Keane £20.3m, Dossena £7m and Aquilani £20m - that is if Aquilani doesn't get used and prove himself worth the tag. I think most of us could see Keane wasn't worth £20.3m at 28, why couldn't Rafa?!?! And Dossena is now 28 and still has only 10 caps for Italy, I'd love to know if the scout for that one wasn't a boy scout called pew and went just the once when Napoli were playing the side bottom of Serie A.

I'm not sure while Rafa is in charge if we'll see Aquilani played that much, Rafa seems to stuck in his system(s) and seems unwilling to play Aquilani in place of Lucas/Mascherano and wraps him up in cotton wool too much. The English game can be physical, Aquilani will have to toughen up to it or ship out. Otherwise every club we play will put the foot in whenever he is playing and we'll have a £20m white elephant - if we haven't already bagged one

[DrPepe]

Have you heard that rafa is choosing to (or being told to) limit aqualani this year in order to prevent a first-season appearances clause and save the club £5m?

Or if you liked that one, the Robbie Keane sale was forced because we couldn't afford (ie the banks told us) to pay the follow-on payments for the player.

Seems a bit conspracy-theorist, but in the light of our tortured transfer dealings since the beginning of last season,it may almost make sense...

[bunglemark2]

If it's true, I would fully understand it, and back Rafa for it. Give him another few months to settle into the PL and if by Christmas he STILL doesn't show signs of being able to hack it, flog him back to Serie A...

[Sir Roger]

Have you heard that rafa is choosing to (or being told to) limit aqualani this year in order to prevent a first-season appearances clause and save the club £5m?

Or if you liked that one, the Robbie Keane sale was forced because we couldn't afford (ie the banks told us) to pay the follow-on payments for the player.

Seems a bit conspracy-theorist, but in the light of our tortured transfer dealings since the beginning of last season,it may almost make sense...

Its a pity we didnt have the same clause for Lucas

[Fowler_E7]

Have you heard that rafa is choosing to (or being told to) limit aqualani this year in order to prevent a first-season appearances clause and save the club £5m?

Or if you liked that one, the Robbie Keane sale was forced because we couldn't afford (ie the banks told us) to pay the follow-on payments for the player.

Seems a bit conspracy-theorist, but in the light of our tortured transfer dealings since the beginning of last season,it may almost make sense...

just when i thought id heard them all 

[Redman in wales]

Have you heard that rafa is choosing to (or being told to) limit aqualani this year in order to prevent a first-season appearances clause and save the club £5m?

Or if you liked that one, the Robbie Keane sale was forced because we couldn't afford (ie the banks told us) to pay the follow-on payments for the player.

Seems a bit conspracy-theorist, but in the light of our tortured transfer dealings since the beginning of last season,it may almost make sense...

just when i thought id heard them all 

Knicked from RAWK:

The full transfer fee was released by Roma to placate fans. You can find it here in Italian (http://www.asroma.it/UserFiles/988.pdf) but Jamie Kanwar from Liverpool-Kop.com did a translation/analysis and it comes down to this:

Four cash installments:

* €5m upfront
* €3m by 4th January 2010
* €7m by June 30th 2010
* €5m by June 30th 2011.

Base transfer fee = €20m/£18m

Further Add ons include:

* €300k for every year Liverpool qualify for the CL from 2010/11 to 2014/15.

* €250k every time the player reaches 35 appearancs; 70 appearances; 105 appeances and then 140 appearances.

* €1m the first time Liverpool either wins the Premier League or Champions League by 30 June 2014.

* 5% of any future transfer fee paid to Roma.

CONCLUSION

The following is definite:

* Liverpool will pay £18m for Aquilani.

The following is highly probable:

* £2.2m will become payable as a result CL qualification/appearance levels

* £450k (or whetever fee we get for him) will become payable when Aquilani is sold. (This figure is just for the sake of debate - I'm not saying this WILL happen!)

The following is less probable but still possible:

* £1.8m will become payable as a result of winning the league/CL

POTENTIAL TOTAL COST OF TRANSFER - £22.45m

[Waldo]

Given we have almost our full squad back fit I would support Rafa if he is holding Aquaman back for the run in and we don't see much of the guy in the 1st team. We aren't playing well, the run in is going to be a tough tough battle, we are scrapping for every point and unless we have a massive change in form this is going to be the case for remainder of the season and it is not a place for either Aquaman (or Pachecho or any other youngster for that matter).

Had we been on song like we were last season at this point then absolutely get them in but we are not and tinkering with the team to try and fit in the big summer signing is not the way forward. It is time for a battle and Aquaman is not ready to do battle in the EPL.

I am not saying he won't ever be ready for the EPL but, like the majority of other foreign players who come to the EPL, he will need time to settle into life in the EPL and Liverpool.

I am very much in the "give the guy time" camp when it comes to Aquaman.

[JBG]

Rafas been talking about Aqualini today ahead of the Wigan game, saying that he's still part of his plans.

My guess is that he'll be on the first flight home to Italy this summer. One upside is that he's highly rated in Italy, so someone like Juventus or Milan will probably give us most of our money back.