Liverpool FC Forum

by **red_guy** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:10 am

Bamaga man wrote:
god_bless_john_houlding wrote:I've been the biggest moaner on here about Mascheranho and his lack of goals, but yesterday he proved that he does have it in his locker. If he chips in with a few each season then I'll be more than pleased because the rest of his game is outstanding even his passing has come on leaps and bounds of late.

GBJH

I find it quite mystifing as to why you have moaned about the price we paid for Mascha.

Just a quick comparrison, but didnt United fork out the same amount of money for Michael Carrick ? If we'd had signed a player of his calibre for 18 million I would tatally be in agreeance with you, as he is another Englishman way overated.

You said you've had a moan about his lack of goals, what about Carra from set-plays and corners then ? I know we never paid for him but Carra he never scores and nobody ever says ought about that.Carra prevents us conceeding goals and we appreciate that enough to never give him a hard time about scoring. So does Mascha he prevents opponents from scoring but he plays further on, granted, but the engine, tenaciouness ?, the tackling and the passing that comes into his game is much higher and better than than most of our players. Its amazing for me because as a small fella hes hard to shrug off the ball and has a low center of gravity. He is an astiounding talent in this area of the park, and how many times this season has he been our MOTM, above Torres, Gerrard and Carra ?

People shouldnt think that only forwards and attacking midfie;lders are worth double digit millions. That is nonsense and doesnt do the Defensive midfield and defenders justice, e\qually their important as eachother, as they help to prevent goals.

Trust me with the players around today, I cannot thin of anyone better who I'd like to replace him, and even if that player did chip in with a few more goals I'd still take Masha as he simply is world class in that position, and for that price especially when compared to players like Hargreaves, Carrick and even Essein at 24 million was it ? Mascha was a snip.

Absolutely. Spot on!! :nod

by **Owzat** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:48 am

skatesy wrote:

The Manhattan Project wrote:Pay the money and the quality shows.

20M for Torres

18M for Masch

Cut the draws and the title will be ours.

The draws are down to a lack of goals and occaisional defensive frailties.

And your comment on paying top money is valid, two of the three teams to have won the league spend big money on players and you don't often see £5m-£7m spent on a player - when you do the player normally proves a gem.

Top Transfer Fees*

£30.0m Shevchenko (Chelsea)
£30.0m Ferdinand (Man Utd)
£25.0m Rooney (Man Utd)
£24.4m Essien (Chelsea)
£24.0m Drogba (Chelsea)
£21.0m Torres (LIVERPOOL)
£21.0m Wright-Phillips (Chelsea)
£19.9m Carvalho (Chelsea)
£18.0m Mascherano (LIVERPOOL)
£18.0m Anderson (Man Utd)
£18.0m Carrick (Man Utd)
£17.0m Hargreaves (Man Utd)
£17.0m Owen (Newcastle)
£16.6m Makelele (Chelsea)
£16.5m Bent (Tottenham)

*according to some sources, this isn't meant to be a definitive list with definitive fees. As there is too much debate as to Cashley's true cost I have left him out

Makes it even more remarkable that Arsenal have won titles and are right up there now, I think Hleb at £9m is their most expensive current player.

Players over £20m (by club)

4 Chelsea
2 Man Utd
1 Liverpool
0 Arsenal and the rest

Man Utd have landed several players like Ronaldo and Vidic for relative snips. And they still have home grown talents Scholes, Giggs and Neville although we have Gerrard and Carra so they don't gain massive advantage from that as their trio are older (33+) You wouldn't say many in that list were massive flops, arguably some over-priced, but I think we'd take a couple of those even if it were a random draw

And if you were to extend that list you'd find most of our players are in the less than £10m bracket

£10m+ : 5
£5m-£9m : 8
£1m-£4m : 4
negligibile/zero : 7

Average : £5.59m (24 players)

by **ivor_the_injun** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:10 pm

Walcott's fee to Arsenal is thought to eventually add up to £12m.

In all fairness, their policy of not disclosing transfer fees has undoubtedly hidden a multitude of spending over the years. The fee for Eduardo was widely reported as being £8.5m, but there was an unsourced quote attributed to someone at Dinamo Zagreb saying that the fee was actually around £15m.

The idea that Wenger's assembled an entire squad on the cheap is a myth - there are many bargains in there, don't get me wrong, but I reckon the overall cost is more or less the same as ours.

Plus, I don't think they'll win the league. On current form they may even end up 4th again.

by **stmichael** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:18 pm

ivor_the_injun wrote:The idea that Wenger's assembled an entire squad on the cheap is a myth - there are many bargains in there, don't get me wrong, but I reckon the overall cost is more or less the same as ours.

I've been pointing this out for years, especially to Big Niall who keeps banging the "Wenger has spent peanuts" drum. Oh so this willl be the same Wenger who down the years spen £18m on Reyes, £13m on Wiltord, £12m on Walcott, £7m on Jeffers, £5m on Richard Wright would it? Even the likes of Sagna and Hleb now cost £17m between them.

The difference with Wenger is he's been extremely good at selling players at the right time for a substantial profit.

by **maguskwt** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:25 pm

Bamaga man wrote:Its amazing for me because as a small fella hes hard to shrug off the ball and has a low center of gravity.

yes sometimes i see him shrug much larger players off the ball...and they tumble over... simply amazing

by **JC_81** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:35 pm

stmichael wrote:
ivor_the_injun wrote:The idea that Wenger's assembled an entire squad on the cheap is a myth - there are many bargains in there, don't get me wrong, but I reckon the overall cost is more or less the same as ours.

I've been pointing this out for years, especially to Big Niall who keeps banging the "Wenger has spent peanuts" drum. Oh so this willl be the same Wenger who down the years spen £18m on Reyes, £13m on Wiltord, £12m on Walcott, £7m on Jeffers, £5m on Richard Wright would it? Even the likes of Sagna and Hleb now cost £17m between them.

The difference with Wenger is he's been extremely good at selling players at the right time for a substantial profit.

Agreed St Mike. Wenger has wasted a lot of money over the years.

The Wenger situation is a strange one. He certainly has an eye for talent and has made some top signings over the years for peanuts (Anelka, Vieira, Petit, Ljungberg, Toure, Eboue, Fabregas, Flamini, Clichy and more). Other strokes of genius were the signings of Henry, Adebayor and in my opinion his best deal was getting a world class centre half (Gallas) plus cash for a good but overrated left back (Cole). That deal also included Diarra going to Arsenal for only 2 million who was then sold on at a healthy profit - very good business.

But although Wenger is undoubtedly a top manager, he has made a lot of mistakes too. You've mentioned most of them, but lets not forget Luzhny, Diawara, Wreh, Caballero, Grimandi, Suker and Stepanovs who all cost a couple of million and flopped. Then there's letting the likes of Bentley and Sidwell go as teenagers, when they were worth a lot more - Bentley in particular would probably be good enough for the Arsenal first team these days, but you'll never hear Wenger admit it.

by **stmichael** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:38 pm

john craig wrote:Then there's letting the likes of Bentley and Sidwell go as teenagers, when they were worth a lot more - Bentley in particular would probably be good enough for the Arsenal first team these days, but you'll never hear Wenger admit it.

definitely, i was saying as much to an arsenal mate of mine the other day. it comes to something when they've been playing eboue (a right back) or walcott (a striker) on the right wing for most of the season. bentley would walk in their side imo.

by **tubby** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:47 pm

You think so? His crossing in the first half for that England match was lousy to say the least. Granted he stepped it up in the 2nd half but hes not that good that he could walk into the Arsenal side imo.

by **Toffeehater** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:10 pm

Players that Wenger has bought , Henry i think it was 16 mill , Wiltord 13 mill , helb 9 mill , Walcott 12 mill , Eduardo was 10 mill ..

Agree with st mike , he has sold his players for a good profit , henry for 14 mill , but argubaly got the best outta him , viera was for 24 mill . Wenger is a good buisness man

Anyone know Adebayor's fee??

by **JC_81** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:20 pm

Toffeehater wrote:Players that Wenger has bought , Henry i think it was 16 mill , Wiltord 13 mill , helb 9 mill , Walcott 12 mill , Eduardo was 10 mill ..

Agree with st mike , he has sold his players for a good profit , henry for 14 mill , but argubaly got the best outta him , viera was for 24 mill . Wenger is a good buisness man

Anyone know Adebayor's fee??

Henry only cost Arsenal 10 mil if I remember.

Think Adebayor was about 4-6 mil, although I'm not completely sure. Wikipedia say 3 mil - I thought it was more than that though.

by **ivor_the_injun** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:11 pm

Van Bronckhorst hasn't been mentioned yet. He was £8.5m and did pretty much f*ck all.

Here's what people miss - it's the volume of players he brings in young for 1 or 2 million, and they've really racked up over the years. Wenger bought Pennant as a 15-year-old for £2m, who made only 12 appearances (mainly as sub) in 6 years, and left on a free.

There are countless examples of this kind of money changing hands for players that just disappear after signing. We used to crucify Houllier for it, but Arsenal were just as bad. They're just better at shifting players on quietly.

Sebastian Svard - signed for £1.5m in 1999, and never played a game. Similarly Sebastian Larsson, Alexandre Song, Moritz Volz...

Rafa's been guilty of the same on occasion, but generally the fees have been less than more like 5 figures than 7.

by **Owzat** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:26 pm

stmichael wrote:
ivor_the_injun wrote:The idea that Wenger's assembled an entire squad on the cheap is a myth - there are many bargains in there, don't get me wrong, but I reckon the overall cost is more or less the same as ours.

I've been pointing this out for years, especially to Big Niall who keeps banging the "Wenger has spent peanuts" drum. Oh so this willl be the same Wenger who down the years spen £18m on Reyes, £13m on Wiltord, £12m on Walcott, £7m on Jeffers, £5m on Richard Wright would it? Even the likes of Sagna and Hleb now cost £17m between them.

The difference with Wenger is he's been extremely good at selling players at the right time for a substantial profit.

Arsenal's squad did not cost "peanuts", but it is closer in cost to the spudz, bitters and newcastles of this world than ourselves, the mancs and chelski. I have Walcott down as £5m, not sure where £12m came from. Jeffers cost £8m as I recall, Reyes was reportedly £17m, but getting exact figures is difficult as I said originally

These figures haven't been fully updated since the January window, but give a fair flavour of the costs. There weren't huge amounts of transfers among the big four, in fact I think the only change I made was in putting a fee to Mascherano and adding Skrtel.

rough costs of current squads

1. Chelsea £244m
2. Man Utd £164m
3. LIVERPOOL £134m
4. Tottenham £87m
5. Newcastle £66m
6. ARSENAL £66m
7. West Ham £59m
8. bitters £55m
9. villa £54m

The rest cost under £50m last time I checked them thoroughly, boro being next at £48m (includes Alves at £12m) Interesting to note the bottom four squads in terms of cost are Bolton, Reading, Fulham and Derby - three of those four looking good for the drop. And the bitters make so much of not spending so much, they're only a few places higher than their spending suggests they should be and only because spudz had a shocking start to the season and the barcodes haven't won since mid-December in the league

Wenger has spent some money on players, most of their more expensive players have been sold. As for the value of Da Silva, well it could be someone quoted the fee in Euros which would be about right. Wenger has sold a load of his more expensive signings

JC - I have Adebayor down as £7m

Arsenal's top five fees

1. Hleb £9m
2. Da Silva £7.5m
3. Adebayor £7m
4. Rosicky £6.8m
5. Sagna £6m

I've left out Gallas as I did Cashley, one source reckoned it was £20m for Cashley with Gallas being £5m as p/ex which makes Cashley 'worth' £15m. Give me Bridge any day of the week, Arsenal look no worse off without Cashley and Chelski look worse with him

by **ivor_the_injun** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:41 pm

You've definitely got some of those fees wrong.

Walcott's fee was an initial cost of £5m, rising to £12m based on international caps and appearances. This was reported absolutely everywhere. If you're counting him as £5m, you may as well have Mascha down as the £4m-odd that we've currently paid for him (we're paying in instalments).

Da Silva was widely reported as £8.5m, but according to the Guardian "Dinamo [claimed] the transfer to be worth the £16.25m the Gunners received from Barcelona for Henry". My guess is that it's similar to the Walcott deal in that it's an initial fee which will eventually double if he recovers enough to clock up 100 appearances.

Sagna was widely reported as having signed for 11m euros, which works out as £8.67m.

Hleb was reported to have moved from Stuttgart for 15m euros, which works out as £11.8m.

Otherwise, good job. :laugh:

by **Reg** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:08 pm

How situations differ, lets guess who is the happier man, Torres on 20 million loved by the fans, playing and scoring every week, or Chavchenko at 30 mio or Wright-Phillips at 20 both characterless bit actors in a second rate B Movie? How they sold their souls.....

by **NANNY RED** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:00 pm

Did anyone see skysports news today apparently Masherano, Leto and Insua are all named im the Argentina under 23 squad for the olympics and Lucas in the Brazil squad that would mean loosing Masher and Lucas for the first few games of next season. absolute joke

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