Liverpool FC Forum

by **spion** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:20 pm

In light of a few of the articles posted on this site recently, I felt that I should cast a spotlight upon the inevitable discussion of Liverpool’s strength in depth. We all know that we don’t have any. Many fans would probably rate this as our largest problem. But who is truly to blame?
During the transfer windows, the priority is the first team. The large portion of your funding should go into tweaking the starting line-up. Ideally you would replace a few of your starting 11 with a better player, which would move the previous starter to the bench and allow you to sell his old replacement.
The point was made that money is not the be all and end all. This is certainly true when it comes to the first team, but for the squad it most definitely isn’t! When you have cash at your disposal then its up to you to spend it responsibly (ala not blowing 30 mil on Berbatov). I dealt with the money that we have spent in my two recent articles though, so I won’t go into detail here.
Now here’s a look at Rafa’s net spend by year since he arrived at LFC:
Year……………Bought………………Sold………………Net……
04/05……………39.75………………10.50……………29.25…
05/06……………26.29………………12.00……………14.29…
06…………..……23.70………………11.13……………12.57…
Yanks arrive! (06/02/2007)
07………………..20.60………………2.70………………17.90
07/08……………43.00………………33.20………………9.80…
08/09……………39.00………………32.75………………6.25…
09/10……………40.00………………35.50………………4.50…
Here’s the problem. If you are selling 30 mil in players every season and only buying 40 mil, then that means that the players who should be moving to your bench are instead being sold to fund their replacements. The biggest problem that the Yanks have thrust upon us is the lack of squad depth.
Letting players go on a free is a different story (Finnan, Sami and others), but Cisse, Bellamy, Garcia, Gonzalez, Sissoko, Crouch, Guthrie, Carson, Riise, Keane, Alonso and Arbeloa all had to be sold (for a total of 90 mil) in order for us to buy the quality we needed for the first team. All of these players (with a few exceptions eg. Alonso and Keane) would be sitting on our bench right now if we had the cash to buy without selling first.
Note that the players mentioned above were all sold after the yanks arrived. Before the yanks our biggest sale was Baros for 6.5 mil (excluding Owen for 8 mil since that was organised before Rafa) and the second biggest was Kirkland for 3.5 mil. After the yanks arrived we have sold 8 players for more than Kirkland, 5 of which were even higher than Baros.
Because of this Rafa has been forced to bring in players on free transfers and cheap buys to try and fill the holes left by his enforced sales. Enter Voronin, Degen and Kyrgiakos. This is now our squad. Players who were deemed not good enough to warrant new contracts at the clubs they were serving before. Yes, they are bad, but they could have been oh so much worse.
In terms of the squad, the yanks are to blame, not Rafa. In terms of the strength of the players that have been through our club, that is on Rafa’s head (and even that’s up for debate sometimes, ala Robbie Keane).
The other side of the coin revolves around pushing young talent through. After all, Arsene Wenger has been performing miracles on a very small budget hasn’t he?
Indeed he has. A look at Arsenal’s recent transfer activity shows a net gain of 17.95 mil (56.65 mil in and 74.6 mil out) in the last 4 years. Incredible. Remember though that Arsene Wenger already had his entire team and squad at the start of these 4 years.
Looking at Rafa’s side we see 7 very promising youngsters (including Nemeth, N’Gog, Insua, Plessis, and El Zhar) arriving at our club in the last 3 years for a grand total of 1.5 mil, all of which was spent on N’Gog. Now I will confess that my source is not complete and not all of the youngsters are accounted for, but that’s pretty impressive going.
But having the young talent available and truly utilising it are two different things. This is one of the real debating points about Rafa in recent times. Personally I think we’re doing fine (especially as far as N’Gog and Insua are concerned). Rafa has never really had youngsters of this calibre available to him before, so I won’t judge him until I see the fruits. Insua looks good (though he needs to stop ball watching) and N’Gog is just getting better and better. So far so good then.
In conclusion: Yes we lack strength in depth, yes we have some players in our squad who simply aren’t good enough, but at the same time there are a few great prospects on the horizon. While I gave Rafa a thumbs up for his transfer dealings in both of my last articles, here I give him no thumbs at all but one pointing way, way down to our beloved owners. Cough up the goods you promised!

by **shitonutd78** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:49 pm

fair point but wat about his decisions to only play with on striker against weak opposition's?

by **SouthCoastShankly** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:53 pm

What makes you think the money would of been there if the yanks hadn't of taken over?

by **tubby** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:31 pm

SouthCoastShankly wrote:What makes you think the money would of been there if the yanks hadn't of taken over?

Can we not assume had we not sold to the yanks that we would have sold to DIC? Sure they have problems now but from then until now im sure we would have spent more on the squad not to mention had a stadium underway.

by **slickrick** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:53 am

we spent 20m on a full back we didn't need and look what he was like today, we need wingers, everybody knows it except rafa, rafa and the yanks may go, we are shocking at this moment in time

by **Owzat** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:05 am

bavlondon wrote:
SouthCoastShankly wrote:What makes you think the money would of been there if the yanks hadn't of taken over?

Can we not assume had we not sold to the yanks that we would have sold to DIC?

Always the best way, make assumptions and dress up the alternative you didn't get as perfect!

I agree with SCS, you can't assume anything. As for the strengthening of the squad, Rafa discarded way too many players way too fast and not for big money. He had a clearout, in those you don't so much worry about what you bring in in terms of players or money, you just want rid.

And yes, you do put money into the first team, but if your squad is thin and you don't have unlimited transfer funds, then you have to have a more balanced approach that Rafa hasn't shown. Rafa has spent nearly £40m in each of the last four seasons, £10m a season more than the mancs and £3.5m more than Chelsea. Sure we've also sold players, but mostly by Rafa's choice. Whether the 'net spend' is near zero or not, millions of pounds worth have players have gone and millions of pounds worth have come in without much improvement if any.

What worth £20.3m Keane, £7m Dossena and £8m Riera now? £35m spent on three players, one has gone and the others are nothing like first choice. But those were hefty transfer fees, money that could have been spent more wisely. Even the £3m spend on Cavalieri, a back-up keeper, could have been saved by spending it on a bargain who could have been used more. Rafa went out and spent £17.5m on a RB and £20m on an injured CM, lot of good either of them have done us. Our record now reads 10 wins and 10 defeats for the season, I'll save other stats for a more deserving thread.

by **Emerald Red** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:46 pm

slickrick wrote:we spent 20m on a full back we didn't need and look what he was like today, we need wingers, everybody knows it except rafa, rafa and the yanks may go, we are shocking at this moment in time

Don't be daft. Of course we needed a RB. We haven't had a RB like Johnson at the club in well over 15 years. He was a great buy.

by **Benny The Noon** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:50 pm

It also appears that pompey owed us money from the pennant loan deal and that was taken off the price from johnson .

by **redbeergoggles** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:07 pm

spion wrote:In light of a few of the articles posted on this site recently, I felt that I should cast a spotlight upon the inevitable discussion of Liverpool’s strength in depth. We all know that we don’t have any. Many fans would probably rate this as our largest problem. But who is truly to blame?
During the transfer windows, the priority is the first team. The large portion of your funding should go into tweaking the starting line-up. Ideally you would replace a few of your starting 11 with a better player, which would move the previous starter to the bench and allow you to sell his old replacement.
The point was made that money is not the be all and end all. This is certainly true when it comes to the first team, but for the squad it most definitely isn’t! When you have cash at your disposal then its up to you to spend it responsibly (ala not blowing 30 mil on Berbatov). I dealt with the money that we have spent in my two recent articles though, so I won’t go into detail here.
Now here’s a look at Rafa’s net spend by year since he arrived at LFC:
Year……………Bought………………Sold………………Net……
04/05……………39.75………………10.50……………29.25…
05/06……………26.29………………12.00……………14.29…
06…………..……23.70………………11.13……………12.57…
Yanks arrive! (06/02/2007)
07………………..20.60………………2.70………………17.90
07/08……………43.00………………33.20………………9.80…
08/09……………39.00………………32.75………………6.25…
09/10……………40.00………………35.50………………4.50…
Here’s the problem. If you are selling 30 mil in players every season and only buying 40 mil, then that means that the players who should be moving to your bench are instead being sold to fund their replacements. The biggest problem that the Yanks have thrust upon us is the lack of squad depth.
Letting players go on a free is a different story (Finnan, Sami and others), but Cisse, Bellamy, Garcia, Gonzalez, Sissoko, Crouch, Guthrie, Carson, Riise, Keane, Alonso and Arbeloa all had to be sold (for a total of 90 mil) in order for us to buy the quality we needed for the first team. All of these players (with a few exceptions eg. Alonso and Keane) would be sitting on our bench right now if we had the cash to buy without selling first.
Note that the players mentioned above were all sold after the yanks arrived. Before the yanks our biggest sale was Baros for 6.5 mil (excluding Owen for 8 mil since that was organised before Rafa) and the second biggest was Kirkland for 3.5 mil. After the yanks arrived we have sold 8 players for more than Kirkland, 5 of which were even higher than Baros.
Because of this Rafa has been forced to bring in players on free transfers and cheap buys to try and fill the holes left by his enforced sales. Enter Voronin, Degen and Kyrgiakos. This is now our squad. Players who were deemed not good enough to warrant new contracts at the clubs they were serving before. Yes, they are bad, but they could have been oh so much worse.
In terms of the squad, the yanks are to blame, not Rafa. In terms of the strength of the players that have been through our club, that is on Rafa’s head (and even that’s up for debate sometimes, ala Robbie Keane).
The other side of the coin revolves around pushing young talent through. After all, Arsene Wenger has been performing miracles on a very small budget hasn’t he?
Indeed he has. A look at Arsenal’s recent transfer activity shows a net gain of 17.95 mil (56.65 mil in and 74.6 mil out) in the last 4 years. Incredible. Remember though that Arsene Wenger already had his entire team and squad at the start of these 4 years.
Looking at Rafa’s side we see 7 very promising youngsters (including Nemeth, N’Gog, Insua, Plessis, and El Zhar) arriving at our club in the last 3 years for a grand total of 1.5 mil, all of which was spent on N’Gog. Now I will confess that my source is not complete and not all of the youngsters are accounted for, but that’s pretty impressive going.
But having the young talent available and truly utilising it are two different things. This is one of the real debating points about Rafa in recent times. Personally I think we’re doing fine (especially as far as N’Gog and Insua are concerned). Rafa has never really had youngsters of this calibre available to him before, so I won’t judge him until I see the fruits. Insua looks good (though he needs to stop ball watching) and N’Gog is just getting better and better. So far so good then.
In conclusion: Yes we lack strength in depth, yes we have some players in our squad who simply aren’t good enough, but at the same time there are a few great prospects on the horizon. While I gave Rafa a thumbs up for his transfer dealings in both of my last articles, here I give him no thumbs at all but one pointing way, way down to our beloved owners. Cough up the goods you promised!

Good post fella ,but you may be a bit lonely there isnt an awful lot of sense prevalent on this forum of late

Good post though

by **Owzat** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:02 am

So the net profit is lower, is that because Rafa spent less (NO) or because we've sold more players or players at better prices?!?!? He wanted rid of all Houllier's 'rubbish' so of course he'd take lower prices to facilitate a quicker exit for some of them. The other thing net profit conceals is players sold who cost us nothing like Mellor, Guthrie, Owen and Warnock among others. All teams have assets, they sell them to raise funds to buy other/better players and if you buy a player for £6m then he's going to either make you a profit or loss, or you get back what you paid for him. It is irrelevant. How much did the players bought in the summer COST? £39m, that is how much Rafa spent in the summer. Where the money came from is neither here nor there, of course the owners would rather sell Alonso for £30m than pay it out of their bank accounts, but that's purely good business.

Too many try to hide wasteful spending behind "net spending" which is actually merely a profit or loss equation. I don't care if we outspend our income (from player sales), what I do care about is the manager spending £20m on an injured CM and then not playing him when he is fit halfway through the season.

by **bigmick** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:48 am

Our record each time we've played anyone decent this season is interesting. I'm doing this from memory so forgive me if I feck it up.

Teams above us in the Premiership in league matches first:

We played:

Chelsea Away LOST 2-0.
Man Utd Home WON 2-0
Villa Home LOST 3-1
Arsenal Home LOST 2-1
Spurs Away LOST 2-1
City Home DREW 2-2

Champions League (against slightly half decent teams).

Lyons Home LOST 2-1
Lyons Away DREW 1-1
Fiorentina Away LOST 2-0
Fiorentina Home LOST 2-1

* It's worth pointing out that we did manage to beat Debrchen 1-0 both Home and Away. The other teams needless to say battered them.

Carling Cup:

Arsenal Away LOST 2-1

Then we wonder why people are losing a bit of faith.

by **Redman in wales** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:57 am

Owzat wrote:So the net profit is lower, is that because Rafa spent less (NO) or because we've sold more players or players at better prices?!?!? He wanted rid of all Houllier's 'rubbish' so of course he'd take lower prices to facilitate a quicker exit for some of them. The other thing net profit conceals is players sold who cost us nothing like Mellor, Guthrie, Owen and Warnock among others. All teams have assets, they sell them to raise funds to buy other/better players and if you buy a player for £6m then he's going to either make you a profit or loss, or you get back what you paid for him. It is irrelevant. How much did the players bought in the summer COST? £39m, that is how much Rafa spent in the summer. Where the money came from is neither here nor there, of course the owners would rather sell Alonso for £30m than pay it out of their bank accounts, but that's purely good business.

Too many try to hide wasteful spending behind "net spending" which is actually merely a profit or loss equation. I don't care if we outspend our income (from player sales), what I do care about is the manager spending £20m on an injured CM and then not playing him when he is fit halfway through the season.

i agree. net don't mean jack really.

just for example, utd sold ronaldo for £80m and bought vanencia for £18m. now valencia could have been the biggest waste of money the world has ever seen, but it still shows that utd made a £62M net profit - does that make fergie a genious in the transfer market? - no.

Arsenal also made a good net profit, selling Adebayor and Toure, and only buying Vermaelen. We know Wenger is a genious in the transfer market, but it doesn't mean his side a better off just on the fact that he made a net profit.

by **bigmick** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:00 am

It's just different ways of counting but it makes little odds. We've spent more actual than the Mancs and arsenal since Rafa has been in charge, and more NET too. That doesn't necessarily mean we should be able to finish above them every season, but it does mean that if we don't the main reason for us failing to do so isn't through lack of funds.

by **Sir Roger** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 5:41 pm

If he had more money would he by better players?
If he bought better players would he play them in the right position?

by **Dex** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:03 pm

I think Glen Johnson was an excellent buy, he is a creative force and we need more of that in the team. We could not have got a player of his quality from anywhere else as the board were not going to fund enough money so by using the 10 million we were owed from portsmouth Rafa was allowed to buy a world class player at a reduced outlay.
Again with the Aquilani deal it was a compromise, Rafa needed to replace Alonso and I am sure that with more funds he would have chosen a player who was not recoving from a bad injury but thatwould have cost £20 -£25 million. Because of Aquilani's Injury status the board were able to negotiate a deal to buy a great player without stumping up the cash. We have paid some and will pay more depending on how many games he plays and how he performs plus international caps, goals etc...

Our actual net outlay is in the minus figures this season and our net spend will only increase if Aquilani proves worth the value.
These type of deals I am all for if they are being done so the manager can be given more funds to spend on immediate team building but I am against it for the wrong reasons, IE: The board who saddled the club with debt so they could gain control over it without it touching their own cash are choosing these options so that they can look like they are supporting the manager in the press without risking anything themselves.

A team of our stature should be guaranteed 25 mill to spend in the summer and With the sale of Alonso, Arbeloa and a few other nmes leaving the books He shoul have had a lot to spend after these cut price deals, we need more creative players and people who can make the difference individually in games and when the board are keeping the money from sold players from the manager, we are not going to get them.

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