Liverpool FC Forum

jaytoothetee wrote:i've heard both sides of the argument and the way i see it,

1. houllier and benitez have comparable records in the transfer market. they have both signed good players as well as some awful ones.
2. as has wenger. name me one manager who never signed a bad player. that manager doesn't exist.
3. it is anyway irrelevant to compare each and every manager the club has ever had. it won't change anything and houllier and benitez have both done only what they believed was right for the club at the time.

and now we have left all that b0llocks behind,

4. we have a good squad atm. for me 2-3 quality signings will sort out our first eleven, leaving us to sign a couple of decent backup players.
5. we don't as stu suggested, need 6 new first teamers. you can't have world class players in every position. just won't work, for whatever reason. take the scum as an example. they won the league last season with the likes of darren fletcher, wes brown, john o'shea in the squad. the likes of giggs, ronaldo etc. won them the league.
6. and as much as i hate to admit, united have some great players. no getting around that, and this summer we need to bring in players of at least simao's quality to take us to the next level and be able to compete with united and chavski.

anyway, this thread is way off topic. it was about rafa's ability in the transfer market, and spotting talent. not anyone else's, or where the squad is weak. fwiw, i do think rafa has the ability to spot talented youngsters or bargain players who will come good. i'll tell you next year whether or not he can judge the £20m+ players. i also believe he is much more competent in the transfer market with respect to negotiations than parry ever will be (i know this because of my obviously extensive knowledge of the transfer market and how liverpool fc go about their dealings. i may even know as much as stu  )

We need 4-6 new players.

All, must be better than we have now.

I didn't once we say we need 6 players to come into the first team. If you're going to quote me, do it right.

stmichael wrote:Another point to make is Rafa's ability to make current players better than they were before he arrived. Benitez made Carragher a great central defender (he was a good player before but not great) and has revitalized Finnans career too.

The point is that Rafa, in order to build a new team, had to sell much of the old one. So it depended on how much he could get. In the case of Cissé that's been nothing so far! He had to dismantle a squad full of dead wood and some wasters plus deal with two players who didnt want to be at the club - Gerrard and Owen. At the same time he has had to build a large squad to deal with [theoretically] 60 games a season and also a first team capable of challenging for honours. All this while still trying to win cups, which he has done by reaching 4 finals in 3 years.

Yes it's true we don't need a team of world beaters but there comes a time when you can't go any further with the squad youve got. A time when either you've got the quality or you aint. No amount of coaching, tactics or motivation will change that. United and Chelsea have raised the bar so high that the only option Arsenal and ourselves have is to spend big money on individual players. We haven't had a chance to do that and have missed out on too many players for it to be a coincidence.

heimdall wrote:

Redrider wrote:C'mon Bob, where have you been ?
Rafa has tried to play a whole list of characters down both flanks, most notably StevieG. All, have failed to really ignite, with the possible exception of SG who's talent has been wasted. He has shipped in failures like Gonzo and Zenden, Pennant is the best of the bunch but up to now is yet treally cut it !!
He also does not have a capable recipient of any decent quick crosses, consistently hovering anywhere near the box, including Kuyt

Crouch is an absolute mystery, a striker who can't head the ball with conviction. No, he is a link man who takes the ball, holds it up and passes to our strikers running through !! ( No sorry, our last striker moved on to Real madrid and has not been replaced ). No actually, he is mid-field chaser who statistically has ben proven to run further than most marathon runners.
What is this man ? Oh sorry I forgot he is a 'robo-dancer' currently strutting his stuff in Ibiza !!
Meanwhile the best natural finisher in the country was languishing on the bench when Goals were needed during the season, most notably in Athens !!

Raf' needs more than a new striker to make his twin bladed rotating heli-squad fly, he needs four class players, two down the left flank and two up front.
Is it his fault or the money men ? I say his fault, he has already had enough time and more than a little money, but only produced a confused picture!!

Do you honestly believe that Robbie was the answer last season, everytime I saw him play I felt like crying as he just didn't have the pace any more. It was only slighlty better than watching all those seniors matches where you occasionally see a glimpse of the old magic. Robbie had plenty of minutes of playing time to prove himself, far more than I would have given him actually, but failed to deliver!

I personally think Rafa is doing a damn good job, but yes there are things which frustrate me about the man, but he is certainly a vast improvement over Houllier and that other clown Evans. With a few big name signings now, whcih I am confident we will get, then I think the future is looking ver bright.

heimdall wrote:

Redrider wrote:Heimdall,
           There were games last season when we were crying out for a goal and all that was required was for Robbie to be allowed to loiter in and around the box and sniff a goal.
Forget all this chasing back and tracking down, especially in the last 20mins Fowler could have made a difference, Kuyt and Crouch were all playing too deep, or Bellamy too wide. Just too much foraging and not enough poaching !!

yes I agree with you, I wish he could have scored some goals when he came on but he never did, he knew what he wanted to do and had by far the best footballing brain and instinct but is just too slow these days, it's frustrating to watch and must be him off too.

Bammo wrote:We can all agree that Rafa hasn't had 100% success in the transfer market but when has there ever been a manager that has?

For those of you naming Josemi as a waste of money: he cost £2m, was only here for a few months , swapped for Kromkamp who was then sold for £2.5m. So we actually made a profit.

I agree that I'd rather see reserve/youth players playing than bringing in average foreign players. Hopefully we'll see more of Peltier etc this season and Guthrie will prove himself at Bolton.

Pennant had a decent last half of the season. To suggest we should have relied on Gerrard is ludicrous. What if he'd got injured? Then who would we have played there? We're only now getting to the stage where we can aim for star buys in each position. Up until now Rafa has been trying to make sure we have adequate cover for the first team.

How about we judge him on the results he's got us. So far we've had 1 CL and 1 final with the players he brought in so they can't be that bad. If the team fails to improve in the league then maybe some criticism is necessary but it's a bit over the top at the moment.

Perhaps all this is due to our frustration at the seemingly slow progress of transfers at the moment. I'm sure if we've signed Torres, Mancini and a few more by August we'll be raving about his transfer policy!

Stu.Murph wrote:Bob thats the exact point mate. We don't need major surgery. But we need absoloute class to come in to take us to another level. People bang on about options, and options of course are great.


......


Come that summer though, Rafa spent £30,000,000 and managed to weaken the squad now taking us to 4-6 players away.

Stu.Murph wrote:

heimdall wrote:

Redrider wrote:Heimdall,
           There were games last season when we were crying out for a goal and all that was required was for Robbie to be allowed to loiter in and around the box and sniff a goal.
Forget all this chasing back and tracking down, especially in the last 20mins Fowler could have made a difference, Kuyt and Crouch were all playing too deep, or Bellamy too wide. Just too much foraging and not enough poaching !!

yes I agree with you, I wish he could have scored some goals when he came on but he never did, he knew what he wanted to do and had by far the best footballing brain and instinct but is just too slow these days, it's frustrating to watch and must be him off too.

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Stu.Murph wrote:

Bammo wrote:We can all agree that Rafa hasn't had 100% success in the transfer market but when has there ever been a manager that has?

For those of you naming Josemi as a waste of money: he cost £2m, was only here for a few months , swapped for Kromkamp who was then sold for £2.5m. So we actually made a profit.

I agree that I'd rather see reserve/youth players playing than bringing in average foreign players. Hopefully we'll see more of Peltier etc this season and Guthrie will prove himself at Bolton.

Pennant had a decent last half of the season. To suggest we should have relied on Gerrard is ludicrous. What if he'd got injured? Then who would we have played there? We're only now getting to the stage where we can aim for star buys in each position. Up until now Rafa has been trying to make sure we have adequate cover for the first team.

How about we judge him on the results he's got us. So far we've had 1 CL and 1 final with the players he brought in so they can't be that bad. If the team fails to improve in the league then maybe some criticism is necessary but it's a bit over the top at the moment.

Perhaps all this is due to our frustration at the seemingly slow progress of transfers at the moment. I'm sure if we've signed Torres, Mancini and a few more by August we'll be raving about his transfer policy!

Its not about what he's wasted. NONE of Rafa's signings have been a disaster, none of them have been what I'd class as poor. All have served a purpose.

Again I will say it, the problem I have is, he's not signed enough quality. He's signed decent players when he could have had excellent players for the same money.

Or buy less players and buy top quality.

Stu.Murph wrote:Its not about what he's wasted. NONE of Rafa's signings have been a disaster, none of them have been what I'd class as poor. All have served a purpose.

Again I will say it, the problem I have is, he's not signed enough quality. He's signed decent players when he could have had excellent players for the same money.

But you said he's come nowhere near Houllier in terms of signings, so I'm assuming you consider Diouf, Diao, Biscan, Heggem and co all to have served a purpose, what purpose did Diao and Diouf serve exactly?

If none of Rafa's signings have been a disaster what were Cisse, Diouf and Diao? £30m of sh!t.

Yet Rafa has yet to reach Houllier's level of ability in signing players! 

s@int wrote:For £16million accepting Kuyts purchase I think we could have got better than Pennant.

LFC2007 wrote:

s@int wrote:For £16million accepting Kuyts purchase I think we could have got better than Pennant.

Ok well I see Bellamy as being a necessity at the time, Cisse was not preffered by Rafa and at the time most people considered £6m a very good deal for someone with superior attributes IMO to Cisse. With hindsight we can say it was a bad move signing Bellamy, but maybe some of his performances in Europe may just have been crucial to our season, had we not had him as an option we may not have progressed in certain UCL games.

Which is kinda the point of this thread that Rafa doesnt always get it right