Liverpool FC Forum

[Big Niall]

in my opionion that's part of the problem we have with rafa - he's to quick to snap up youngsters from abroad but can you remember him paying money on home grown talent?

He has bought English and been stung to varying degrees in the past. What English/British/Irish player has shone at Anfield (without question) since Rafa got here that isn't Carra or Gerrard? ie wasn't established before Rafa came.

Carson
Keane £20.3m
Pennant £6.7m
Martin
Bellamy £6m
Crouch £7m
Johnson £17.5m
Anderson
Hobbs

Some of the prices you can pay just for being British/English/Irish are laughable, it's not really a surprise Rafa shopped abroad. How much did Lescott, Barry etc cost Citeh? I said quite some time ago you can add 50% to the fee that a foreign player would cost simply for a player being British. I stand by that rule of thumb which stands most tests.

Don't forget, he actually wanted the owners to fork out 18m for Barry.

[Penguins]

We tried to get Barry but in the end i think 18 million was way too much for him .

i agree that £18m maybe too much for barry if you evaluate the player alone. but its all relative...

£18m for barry
£20m for aquilani.
£20m keane



I'd take barry.

In this case you can choose your relatives............... 

I would take none of the above, if asked if you would rather eat a black man's shit, a white man's shit or dogshit then I and most would say "none, feck off". It doesn't have to be either/or

I think that comparison is wrong as Rafa probably wasn't allowed to spend more than 5 million up front that summer on a cm.
That limits your options alot as most teams wants much more cash straight away.

I find that an important issue being overlooked.

Yes, on paper it looks like Rafa got 35 million to spend that summer, but the truth is he got 35 million up front and paid maybe 12-14 million up front as the owners took most of the money.
It makes as huge difference as it limits you options of who you can buy. We needed a top class cm to replace Alonso and had 5 million to spend up front. Eh, how many were there available? If Aquilani hadn't been injured I guess 5 million wouldn't had been enough either.

With the financial difficulty Portsmouth was/is in who knows when/if we were ever going to get that money owed for Crouch?

[Big Niall]

We tried to get Barry but in the end i think 18 million was way too much for him .

i agree that £18m maybe too much for barry if you evaluate the player alone. but its all relative...

£18m for barry
£20m for aquilani.
£20m keane



I'd take barry.

All a waste of money and he wanted all 3.

[Big Niall]

Insua is undoubtedly being targeted by other teams as a weakness, and some of it's down to him. However it doesn't help that we don't have a regular left sided midfield player.

After 6 years in charge we don't have a regular left sided midfielder.

[Penguins]

To be honest he would have to be absolutely world class to cover up for Insua's deficiencies.

And I thought Riise was bare minimum what to expect of a lb at Lfc.... 

[rocky29]

fabio grosso is a good player but he's too old... 32. I think he plays for Lazio or something?

id still pay 5million for him now even at 32. got a great engine and scores the odd goal aswell. hes back at juventus just googled it

[Redman in wales]

We tried to get Barry but in the end i think 18 million was way too much for him .

i agree that £18m maybe too much for barry if you evaluate the player alone. but its all relative...

£18m for barry
£20m for aquilani.
£20m keane



I'd take barry.

In this case you can choose your relatives............... 

I would take none of the above, if asked if you would rather eat a black man's shit, a white man's shit or dogshit then I and most would say "none, feck off". It doesn't have to be either/or

I think that comparison is wrong as Rafa probably wasn't allowed to spend more than 5 million up front that summer on a cm.
That limits your options alot as most teams wants much more cash straight away.

I find that an important issue being overlooked.

Yes, on paper it looks like Rafa got 35 million to spend that summer, but the truth is he got 35 million up front and paid maybe 12-14 million up front as the owners took most of the money.
It makes as huge difference as it limits you options of who you can buy. We needed a top class cm to replace Alonso and had 5 million to spend up front. Eh, how many were there available? If Aquilani hadn't been injured I guess 5 million wouldn't had been enough either.

With the financial difficulty Portsmouth was/is in who knows when/if we were ever going to get that money owed for Crouch?

erm... i think you'll find that most deals are stucture in staggered payment terms. Thats how portsmouth came to still owe us for the crouch deal a year later.  Its not that uncommon. So yes wecould have got someone else for that kind of money

[SouthCoastShankly]

We tried to get Barry but in the end i think 18 million was way too much for him .

i agree that £18m maybe too much for barry if you evaluate the player alone. but its all relative...

£18m for barry
£20m for aquilani.
£20m keane



I'd take barry.

All a waste of money and he wanted all 3.

Not quite correct, Aquilani was brought once the Barry deal fell through and Alonso was sold.

As for the list of British players that have flopped. I wouldn't say Crouch flopped, in fact he was a big success considering the goals he scored and his transfer fee.

As for Keane and Bellamy, what sort of faith were they given? They were marginalised from day one. Bellamy is better than the rest of our strikers bar Torres. Keane I'm sure would of been a success if he had been given the chance.

[Fauxy]

Keane was given chances... he missed about 3 sitters in a few games and had plenty more chances to impress but he never did. I think it's a good job Rafa got what money back from him that he could because the amount of money we payed for him in the first place was mad.

[SouthCoastShankly]

Keane was given chances... he missed about 3 sitters in a few games and had plenty more chances to impress but he never did. I think it's a good job Rafa got what money back from him that he could because the amount of money we payed for him in the first place was mad.

Your right about the fee. But he can't of become a bad player overnight and it is not like he only had one good season at spurs prior to our interest in him.

As you can see now he obviously doesn't cope well with being unsettled. But from the goals he scored for spurs against big teams and a couple he scored for Liverpool (v Arsenal comes to mind) he had the skills to be good. Also he never was given a chance to develop a partnership, either Rafa didn't pick him with Torres or Torres was injured. To me his potential demanded more faith from Rafa.

[bigmick]

As far as left backs go, I think Insua is actually better than many are giving him credit for right at this moment, just like he was nowhere near as good as some were saying when he first came through. If Aurelio was fit 2/3 of the time, Insua could play as a replacement and in a couple of years he might be a decent left back. As it is, he isn't up to being first choice and Aurelio is perpetually injured so we're going to have to look elsewhere I should think.

No doubt there's oodles of left full backs abroad who fit the bill, which is just as well because there aren't that many in England who are buyable. I quite like the lad at Wigan although I can't remember his name (he comes from Honduras I think and scored a goal from a ridiculous distance) while Liam Ridgewell at Birmingham has converted well there from centre half. Other than that and the obvious candidates who are unbuyable, the cupboards a bit bare from what I can see.

[Fauxy]

Yeah he probably could have turned out to be a valuable player for us if he had formed a partnership with Torres. But nobody could afford to wait for that to happen. It could have taken him the whole season to come good but how many results might that have cost us?

Anyways, he was a bad buy and I think Rafa did the right thing cashing him in to avoid him being an even bigger flop.

[Penguins]

Too bad that money he got for Keane just disappeared somewhere....


Well, back to Insua. I wouldn't rate his value above 4-5 million.
Her may get better better at many things with experience, but I don't think he'll ever have the pace to be good enough.
Just going to be in trouble his whole career when facing a winger with pace.

[inglis5]

How good was Daniel Agger tonight at left back? Can we clone him?

Buy another centre half, push Agger out to left back (with Insua as cover), then as Carragher needs to reduce the number of games he plays, move Agger back to the middle and play Insua. Simple, no?

[NANNY RED]

How good was Daniel Agger tonight at left back? Can we clone him?