Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

Just found this, I found it a good read escpecially on the spurs issue, panic buying they where doing fine the way they where.

Premiership: Liverpool transfer window evaluation
Bill Urban

04/02/2005 11:00:00.

"Given the horrific injury list at the club, the exodus of players was always going to be a limited one, because at the rate players were going down with injuries, Benitez was going to have trouble filling both the first-team and the reserve squads"

The general run of opinion among Liverpool supporters regarding the club’s transfer window activity seems to be disappointment that more was not done. Salif Diao was loaned to Birmingham for six months, promptly injuring himself before playing a full match. And Stephane Henchoz, who issued of a string of venomous attacks on Rafa Benitez during the Fall, mystifying to many who saw the act as totally out of character for the Swiss central defender, left Anfield heading north of the border to Glasgow Celtic on a contract til the end of the season.

The prize recruit finally arrived for Liverpool, Fernando Morientes signing a three-and-a-half year deal after the Reds paid £6.3m to Real Madrid to secure the services of the striker, who paid back the first installment on the transfer fee with a stunning goal to set the Reds on their way to a comeback win at the Valley last Tuesday. Argentine central defender Mauricio Pellegrino, a player known to Rafa from their time together at Valencia, arrived from the Spanish Levante club on a free transfer, signing a six-month deal with an option for an additional year. Liverpool’s last move during the January window was to sign Scott Carson from Leeds, ushering the player out from the clutches of Chelsea, who had also registered an interest in obtaining the player’s services.

How did Liverpool’s transfer activity rate? Given the horrific injury list at the club, the exodus of players was always going to be a limited one, because at the rate players were going down with injuries, Benitez was going to have trouble filling both the first-team and the reserve squads; Anthony Le Tallec was brought back from his loan spell at French club St. Etienne after the season-ending knee injury for Florent Sinama Pongolle, which, while not a transfer, certainly qualifies as a move to strengthen the squad on Benitez’s part.

The departures of Diao and Henchoz were both intelligent moves, and may benefit the players as well. Diao had lost the faith of the majority of the Anfield support, and his nervous, technically-limited performances were doing nothing for the team or for his own confidence. A move to Birmingham, who lost Robbie Savage to Blackburn during January, might give Diao the chance to resuscitate his fading career, and getting his wages off the books at Anfield when he clearly was not going to play an important role was good business.

As was the transfer of Henchoz, although there is much to the story of this transfer that has remained hidden from public view. Henchoz’s outbursts were very vehement and downright nasty, which leads one to believe that something must have happened, on the training ground or perhaps in a meeting with Rafa, that caused the player to lose his cool entirely. In the same fashion as Danny Murphy’s catty comments immediately following his transfer to Charlton after being told by Benitez that he was not part of the club’s plans, Henchoz launched his verbal assault for what seemed to be very little reason, at least in the public’s limited viewpoint. Getting a player that unhappy off the books must be the sensible course of action, but the mystery behind the outburst, and the player’s total absence from first-team matches, remains, particularly when Pellegrino’s initial matches were less than steady performances.

Pellegrino was tossed in at the deep end, suiting up immediately following his arrival after having spent the previous six months in Valencia’s reserves. His initial performances were tentative and his lack of pace was exposed several times, but with Sami Hyypia returning from a hip injury, and Finnan fit again, Pellegrino has been placed in the reserves to try to gain some match fitness, as was the original plan, and his strengths as a defensive organizer and header of the ball are coming to the fore.

Morientes was the jewel in the transfer crown for Liverpool; Benitez had tried to pick the player up before the start of the season, only to be rebuffed by the Byzantine club politics at Real Madrid. Like Pellegrino, he arrived short of match fitness, but a steady run of games has culminated in a very impressive performance with the finely-taken goal against Charlton, and the only negative about this transfer is the player’s cup-tied status for the Champions League, having played a brief role in one of Madrid’s early-season European matches.

Scott Carson is an intriguing acquisition, because a frank assessment of Liverpool’s weaknesses always at some point centres on the goalkeeping position. Jerzy Dudek, while having the ability to be a fine shot-stopping keeper, has proven horribly unreliable in high-pressure matches and very unsure coming off his line to command his area. Chris Kirkland, purchased from Coventry to compete with Dudek for the goalkeeping position, has never been able to manufacture a long run in the side due to a depressingly consistent susceptibility to injury. While Carson is only 19 years old, he has turned in some impressive reserve team performances, and must be regarded as a possible solution to the club’s obvious problem position in goal.

Did Liverpool do enough? One of the problems with transfer evaluations is that clubs who have made lots of moves, with lots of transfer activity, always appear to have done better than clubs who have made selective changes. Slapping transfer values on a player is a time-honoured tradition in British football, and buying players who are "worth" a lot inclines many supporters to feel you have done well in the transfer market.

Unless you are Liverpool, and have purchased players such as El Hadj Diouf, the aforementioned Salif Diao, and Bruno Cheyrou, for example. Or you could try the Martin Jol approach and buy everything in the shop window. Three Premiership losses and counting, Martin, not sure panic-buying is much of a solution.

In this particular January window, Liverpool look to have taken care of two specific needs, with a proviso for a third weakness being addressed in a long-term fashion. Goal-scoring has been a problem for the Reds this season, and Morientes will surely prove to have been an astute buy to get the goals flowing more freely. £6.3m seems a reasonable price to have paid for the player. The free transfer for Pellegrino also seems to have been a wise bit of business, despite uneven performances from the player to date. Always intended as cover for rather than a replacement of either Hyypia or Carragher, Pellegrino’s experience and leadership will prove to be a bargain for a free transfer player. And Carson may prove to be a solution to the weakest link in the Liverpool line-up, the goalkeeping position. His youth and inexperience argue against tossing him willy-nilly into full Premiership matches, but look for him to push either Dudek or Kirkland for a more prominent role in the immediate future, and also for one, or perhaps, both keepers to be moving on during the summer.

Several sexy signings to satisfy supporters? On this grading scale, Rafa did poorly. But a few well-chosen moves to address immediate weaknesses in the side? Like so much of the rest of his Anfield tenure, Rafa’s transfer window signings were not about a lot of flash, but rather a little bit of class.

Bill Urban
03/02/2005

[The_Rock]

am kind of disappointed, we didn't go for pennant (as loan signing). He would have surely solved our right wing problems.

[Ciggy]

am kind of disappointed, we didn't go for pennant (as loan signing). He would have surely solved our right wing problems.

I know Rock we only seem to loan all our rejects out, so I think its sort of an arrogance thing that LFC are to proud to get anyones rejects on loan maybe

[stmichael]

am kind of disappointed, we didn't go for pennant (as loan signing). He would have surely solved our right wing problems.

yeah and he could have taken the corners.

no wait a minute, after his recent drink driving offence he obviously can't take corners.    

good player though.

[KennyisGod....still]

am kind of disappointed, we didn't go for pennant (as loan signing). He would have surely solved our right wing problems.

Make a change to have someone unavailable because they aint injured!! 

[The_Rock]

am kind of disappointed, we didn't go for pennant (as loan signing). He would have surely solved our right wing problems.

I know Rock we only seem to loan all our rejects out, so I think its sort of an arrogance thing that LFC are to proud to get anyones rejects on loan maybe

i see your point. But if higher-ups (ie..parry) consider pennant a reject (when we have Nunez and Biscan in our team), i don't know what to think 

[dawson99]

pennant?
i thought we didnt want drunks, wife beaters, doggers, roasters at our club?
ive always liked that more or less we stay out of the public eye in that respect.
plus, hes really NOT all that good

[stmichael]

i thought we didnt want drunks, wife beaters, doggers, roasters at our club?

stan collymore's left mate.    

[dawson99]

[taff]

Rafa's transfer window signings were not about a lot of flash, but rather a little bit of class.

Totally agree, were in this long term and come the summer we will have another couple of classy buys

Slowly but surely RB is going to start fielding a team with class and steel I am convinced we will be challenging next year

We will also have a stronger squad sod it Im putting a bet on for the treble
 

[dawson99]

taff, i like the cut of your gib (SP)
believe it or not im still on for our double. carling and champs league... madness pre season bets i tell yer

[Ciggy]

Only the treble Taff, why not the quadruple 

[taff]

CGGY

The world is a better place with you in it 

[Ciggy]

Awwwwwww
And the world would be a better place with no manure or everton in it

[liamac]