Liverpool FC Forum

[Benny The Noon]

Good words from Rafa and a bit of a hidden message their .

[made in UK]

I think you have made a bit of a ballsup merging the threads Bob.

Two other mods at least saw this and walked on by.

Tripper.

Hmmm, do I know you?

Hmmm........ Surely not.

[made in UK]

Same article from Sky sports

Rafa Benitez has admitted he would quit Liverpool if the club

ever sold Fernando Torres behind his back to ease the financial pressure at Anfield.

The Reds are believed to be up to £245million in debt with owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks openly seeking much needed investment.

The situation has many suggesting that Benitez will have to lower the wage bill in January but the Spaniard has reassured Liverpool fans that he would never sanction the sale of Torres.

The former Valencia boss also defended his transfer record on Merseyside and insisted that the £20million capture of Alberto Aquilani was a bargain.

"I'm confident it will never happen," Benitez told The Times when asked if he was in danger of losing his star striker to ease the club's debt.

"If it did I'd resign."

Defending transfers
Despite splashing the cash on the likes of Ryan Babel [£11m], Robbie Keane [£19m] and Andrea Dossena [£6m], all of whom have or in Keane's case had limited success in the North West Benitez believes he has signed wisely over his five-years at Liverpool.

"When we have spent big, normally it's been very good business," he added.

"Torres, [Javier] Mascherano, [Pepe] Reina, [Xabi] Alonso. [Robbie] Keane is a good player but we had to sell him because he was not playing at the level we knew he could play.

"Ryan [Babel] was signed for the future and we are waiting for his improvement. He has to be more consistent.

"With the fringe players, we needed to take a gamble on Bosmans and one, two million-pound players.

"Some of these players have not been good enough for us. It is a risk you have to accept there is not too much money about."

Benitez stresses that he wants to leave a winning legacy at Anfield and insists the club's fortunes on the pitch will improve as soon as their main men are fully fit.

"There is a massive difference between five years ago and now," he highlighted. "The name of the club round the world is at the same level as it was in the 1980s.


Improvement
"It's a fantastic achievement. Everybody talks about Liverpool in a good way and we will get better.

"People are worried. But the team will improve. When we have key players on the pitch we are as good as anyone. We have proved this in the past."

On Aquilani Benitez added: "We can only buy one or two big, £20million players a year. If we want to have money available then we have to sell expensive and buy as cheaply as possible.

"Aquilani fit would be £20-£30million. We have checked with doctors and they said he would be out one, maybe two months. We have lost some time, but I signed the player for five years not five weeks."



Maybe Rafa is being a "sensationalist"

[stmichael]

incidentally, tony evans who spoke to rafa for that article, is on talksport in a bit. you can listen live via the website.

[Ciggy]

You have to read between the lines of the interview and the probable *off the record parts* of the interview, Rafa is sending a message out loud and clear about the future of the club, ignore at your own peril.
Because when it becomes a reality and Torres is sold to pay off the loans you will be up in arms when its to late.
And some of us will be able to say "We told you so".

[stmichael]

well according to evans, rafa had a "mammoth offer" from another premiership club earler this year which could only point at manchester city.

[LFC2007]

Manager and chief executive may face a difficult transfer window, with the priority being to lower the wage bill. Three or four players may head out of the Anfield exit door, with none of the cash heading back to Benítez...

I wonder.

I didn't realise we'd missed out on another quality player in Ramsey either; it seems that for every dodgy player we've signed we may instead have had a proper first-teamer were it not for incompetence at board level.

[Dazzer]

Same article from Sky sports

Rafa Benitez has admitted he would quit Liverpool if the club

ever sold Fernando Torres behind his back to ease the financial pressure at Anfield.

The Reds are believed to be up to £245million in debt with owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks openly seeking much needed investment.

The situation has many suggesting that Benitez will have to lower the wage bill in January but the Spaniard has reassured Liverpool fans that he would never sanction the sale of Torres.

The former Valencia boss also defended his transfer record on Merseyside and insisted that the £20million capture of Alberto Aquilani was a bargain.

"I'm confident it will never happen," Benitez told The Times when asked if he was in danger of losing his star striker to ease the club's debt.

"If it did I'd resign."

Defending transfers
Despite splashing the cash on the likes of Ryan Babel [£11m], Robbie Keane [£19m] and Andrea Dossena [£6m], all of whom have or in Keane's case had limited success in the North West Benitez believes he has signed wisely over his five-years at Liverpool.

"When we have spent big, normally it's been very good business," he added.

"Torres, [Javier] Mascherano, [Pepe] Reina, [Xabi] Alonso. [Robbie] Keane is a good player but we had to sell him because he was not playing at the level we knew he could play.

"Ryan [Babel] was signed for the future and we are waiting for his improvement. He has to be more consistent.

"With the fringe players, we needed to take a gamble on Bosmans and one, two million-pound players.

"Some of these players have not been good enough for us. It is a risk you have to accept there is not too much money about."

Benitez stresses that he wants to leave a winning legacy at Anfield and insists the club's fortunes on the pitch will improve as soon as their main men are fully fit.

"There is a massive difference between five years ago and now," he highlighted. "The name of the club round the world is at the same level as it was in the 1980s.


Improvement
"It's a fantastic achievement. Everybody talks about Liverpool in a good way and we will get better.

"People are worried. But the team will improve. When we have key players on the pitch we are as good as anyone. We have proved this in the past."

On Aquilani Benitez added: "We can only buy one or two big, £20million players a year. If we want to have money available then we have to sell expensive and buy as cheaply as possible.

"Aquilani fit would be £20-£30million. We have checked with doctors and they said he would be out one, maybe two months. We have lost some time, but I signed the player for five years not five weeks."



Maybe Rafa is being a "sensationalist"

Well if the Owners ever do wanna get rid of Rafa with out paying the fee he just told them how ? Sell Torres and I am gone they might just do it you know to get rid of him
If that is what they want.

[supersub]

I think you have made a bit of a ballsup merging the threads Bob.

Two other mods at least saw this and walked on by.

Tripper.

can't understand why you escaped without a card for repeated thread duplicating 

[bigmick]

I may be being cynical, but all that was missing from that was ..... and here ends the party political broadcast on behalf of the Benitez party.

I must confess that's how it reads to me too. There can't have been a manager in the history of English football who is better at manipulating the trickle of information out of the club, more adept at dodging grenades regarding his record, quicker on his feet at blaming everyone else. I thought it was funny that the papers claimed it was Rafa's first interview, when in actual fact "sources" and "insiders" regualrly brief friendly journo's with this weeks players who we missed out on and the rest.

The player we missed out on "because the board ("fecking Parry ") fecked it up" this week is Aaron Ramsay. Apparantly we were in for him and it was a done deal at 1.5 mill', before Arsenal came in and said "feck 1.5, we'll treble their offer and give you half a mill' on top". Unsurprisingly the selling club took the 5 mill, and probably couldn't understand why Arsenal didn't just offer 1.75 and have done with it. Probably just being flash southerners or something.

It really is frustrating though that every time we miss out on somebody they turn out to be a good buy, but each time the board manages to get their erse into gear and we sign the likes of Dossena and Keane, it turns out to be a bad one. I'm waiting for the stories about us agreeing a 4 million quid fee for Vermeelan now he's doing so well at Arsenal who bought him for 10, no doubt that's still to come. Stories that we agreed a fee of 17 mill for Upson have been put on the back burner now, apparantly it wasn't him it was Turner, the Sunderland man looking the better buy as of today (not longer term though). Even Florent Malouda, initially missed and then long forgotten about because he was garbage, has now started to feature in the articles again. The Chelsea man can have no better confirmation that his form is on the up than he is being mentioned as one of our missed signings again "Fecking Parry ".

The articles are a good read though, no doubt about it. They even succeeded in making me feel more positive which isn't easy as visitors to this forum will know. I was positively bouncing after I read it, willing to forget the fact that we were as good as out of three of the four competitions we can win before October had run its course. I did then though sneak a quick look at the league table and cast my mind back to last season. I must check out that word "progress" again for a proper definition.

[LFC2007]

That's a complete load of b0llocks.

[bigmick]

That's a complete load of b0llocks.

Sorry you feel that way mate, but there it is. Just bringing a little bit of balance to the table that's all .

[Benny The Noon]

I may be being cynical, but all that was missing from that was ..... and here ends the party political broadcast on behalf of the Benitez party.

I must confess that's how it reads to me too. There can't have been a manager in the history of English football who is better at manipulating the trickle of information out of the club, more adept at dodging grenades regarding his record, quicker on his feet at blaming everyone else. I thought it was funny that the papers claimed it was Rafa's first interview, when in actual fact "sources" and "insiders" regualrly brief friendly journo's with this weeks players who we missed out on and the rest.

The player we missed out on "because the board ("fecking Parry ") fecked it up" this week is Aaron Ramsay. Apparantly we were in for him and it was a done deal at 1.5 mill', before Arsenal came in and said "feck 1.5, we'll treble their offer and give you half a mill' on top". Unsurprisingly the selling club took the 5 mill, and probably couldn't understand why Arsenal didn't just offer 1.75 and have done with it. Probably just being flash southerners or something.

It really is frustrating though that every time we miss out on somebody they turn out to be a good buy, but each time the board manages to get their erse into gear and we sign the likes of Dossena and Keane, it turns out to be a bad one. I'm waiting for the stories about us agreeing a 4 million quid fee for Vermeelan now he's doing so well at Arsenal who bought him for 10, no doubt that's still to come. Stories that we agreed a fee of 17 mill for Upson have been put on the back burner now, apparantly it wasn't him it was Turner, the Sunderland man looking the better buy as of today (not longer term though). Even Florent Malouda, initially missed and then long forgotten about because he was garbage, has now started to feature in the articles again. The Chelsea man can have no better confirmation that his form is on the up than he is being mentioned as one of our missed signings again "Fecking Parry ".

The articles are a good read though, no doubt about it. They even succeeded in making me feel more positive which isn't easy as visitors to this forum will know. I was positively bouncing after I read it, willing to forget the fact that we were as good as out of three of the four competitions we can win before October had run its course. I did then though sneak a quick look at the league table and cast my mind back to last season. I must check out that word "progress" again for a proper definition.

[bigmick]

 

[LFC2007]

In the past, Rafa's frequently made known his frustrations at our inability to tie up deals quickly in the transfer market. Long before now, and in much more optimistic times, so I don't think it's all pie in the sky as you seem particularly keen to imply.

The fact that you cite Turner as an example of this is especially baffling since it was widely known that Rafa was interested in him. Indeed, IIRC, Phil Brown and/or Rafa actually said the clubs were looking to negotiate a deal. I suspect we would have snapped up Kyrgiakos much earlier had he known where he stood.

If you want other examples, Alves and Simao are cast iron. Simao even boarded the plane.