It is now 22 years since Liverpool last won the league title, and main main reason for this extended period of league mediocrity continues to be obvious: the abject waste of tens of millions of pounds on the wrong players. This perennial financial improvidence seemed to have reached its nadir under Rafa Benitez, but, unfortunately, it has only become worse under current manager Kenny Dalglish.
Benitez has always been slightly defensive about his transfer spending (!), but in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, the Spaniard conceded for the first time that he'd made some bad signings, but went on to highlight how the good signings he made continue to benefit Liverpool:
"To be fair, everyone has had bad signings, but if you analyze the current squad of Liverpool -- [Pepe] Reina, [Glen] Johnson, [Daniel] Agger, [Martin] Skrtel, Lucas Leiva, [Dirk] Kuyt, Maxi -- a lot of these players that are doing really well, they were signings that we did".
The impact of the players mentioned here cannot be denied, and Benitez deserves credit for signing the likes of Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, and Kuyt, who has been directly responsible for a quarter of all Liverpool's goals since 2006. Benitez went on to express his irritation over the way people assess his transfer legacy:
"So the people that talk about [Philipp] Degen or [Andriy] Voronin who were free, how you can compare them to the signings of [Fernando] Torres and [Xabi] Alonso? Even with Torres, Alonso, [Javier] Mascherano and the money brought in, and still they talk about the other signings, the majority of which were not too expensive".
I don't think anyone has ever compared the signings of Torres and Alonso to Degen and Voronin (!) Despite Benitez's protestations, he did make a lot of poor signings, and no historical revisionism is going to change that.
Benitez does have a point though; The sales of Torres, Mascherano and Alonso brought in £100m in transfer fees, which was great for the club.
In one year, Dalglish has already spent 40% Benitez's total 6-year transfer spend, and if all of his signings were sold tomorrow, the club would probably struggle to recoup half of what Benitez recouped on Torres, Alonso and Mascherano.
Benitez BAD signings (IMO)
Josemi, Nunez, Pellegrino, Morientes, Carson, Zenden, Barragan, Gonzalez, Anderson, Kromkamp, Palletta, Aurelio, Pennant, El Zhar, Leto, Voronin, Babel, Itandje, Insua, Degen, Dossena, Cavalieri, Keane, Johnson, Aquilani, Riera, Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos.
Benitez GOOD signings
Alonso, Garcia, Reina, Sissoko, Crouch, Agger, Fowler, Bellamy, Kuyt, Arbeloa, Mascherano, Lucas, Torres, Benayoun, Skrtel, Maxi, Shelvey.
NB: By 'bad' I mean overall impact on LFC, not footballing ability.
Jaimie Kanwar
Benitez has always been slightly defensive about his transfer spending (!), but in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, the Spaniard conceded for the first time that he'd made some bad signings, but went on to highlight how the good signings he made continue to benefit Liverpool:
"To be fair, everyone has had bad signings, but if you analyze the current squad of Liverpool -- [Pepe] Reina, [Glen] Johnson, [Daniel] Agger, [Martin] Skrtel, Lucas Leiva, [Dirk] Kuyt, Maxi -- a lot of these players that are doing really well, they were signings that we did".
The impact of the players mentioned here cannot be denied, and Benitez deserves credit for signing the likes of Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, and Kuyt, who has been directly responsible for a quarter of all Liverpool's goals since 2006. Benitez went on to express his irritation over the way people assess his transfer legacy:
"So the people that talk about [Philipp] Degen or [Andriy] Voronin who were free, how you can compare them to the signings of [Fernando] Torres and [Xabi] Alonso? Even with Torres, Alonso, [Javier] Mascherano and the money brought in, and still they talk about the other signings, the majority of which were not too expensive".
I don't think anyone has ever compared the signings of Torres and Alonso to Degen and Voronin (!) Despite Benitez's protestations, he did make a lot of poor signings, and no historical revisionism is going to change that.
Benitez does have a point though; The sales of Torres, Mascherano and Alonso brought in £100m in transfer fees, which was great for the club.
In one year, Dalglish has already spent 40% Benitez's total 6-year transfer spend, and if all of his signings were sold tomorrow, the club would probably struggle to recoup half of what Benitez recouped on Torres, Alonso and Mascherano.
Benitez BAD signings (IMO)
Josemi, Nunez, Pellegrino, Morientes, Carson, Zenden, Barragan, Gonzalez, Anderson, Kromkamp, Palletta, Aurelio, Pennant, El Zhar, Leto, Voronin, Babel, Itandje, Insua, Degen, Dossena, Cavalieri, Keane, Johnson, Aquilani, Riera, Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos.
Benitez GOOD signings
Alonso, Garcia, Reina, Sissoko, Crouch, Agger, Fowler, Bellamy, Kuyt, Arbeloa, Mascherano, Lucas, Torres, Benayoun, Skrtel, Maxi, Shelvey.
NB: By 'bad' I mean overall impact on LFC, not footballing ability.
Jaimie Kanwar
How?, Jaimie, please elaborate, further.
ReplyDeleteYou keep referring to the word 'irrelevant' , quite often,
ReplyDeleteChan, ever wondered WHY?.
I use the word 'irrelevant' as its an apt and appropriate response to some replies. Look up the word in a dictionary and hopefully you will understand. If you don't, tough luck
ReplyDeleteI have criticised KK plenty on here, such as his management of Maxi, Carroll, behaviour of Suarez, behaviour in the press, his lame excuses, etc, as well as praised the effect he had on the team in the second half of last season.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want Hodgson in the first place and criticised some of the decisions he made whilst in charge but doesn't mean I will stand idly by and watch fans crucify him yet give all the time in the world to KK
Like it or not, Rafa had his flaws and negatives as well as his positives.
Liverpool were cursed with the two worst owners on the planet: Gillett & Hicks. Really, they make Wall St predators look tame by comparison.
ReplyDeleteThose two deserve to be hung, drawn, quartered and their remains scattered throughout the mersey.
Everytime!!!
ReplyDeleteWrong Chan.....You use it, because, it suits your argument, correct me, only if i'm wrong, which I very much doubt!.
ReplyDeleteI use it because to some of those replies to my posts as they don't fit in with the context of my posts. Ergo, irrelevant. I'll say no more on this as if you don't get it by now, with all due respect, I doubt you will ever get the concept of irrelevancy and context.
ReplyDeletesome of your bad signings are nonsense, brought in on free's for squad cover. Others are open to debate. Aquilani is good enough for Milan who seem a bit better side than we are at the moment. Johnson a bad buy? Are you talking about Glen Johnson - is this some kind of a joke?
ReplyDeleteHow was Kyrgiakos a bad signing? He cost buttons, played 49 games, Echo man of the match 8 times, fans player of the month January 2010, John aldridge was raving about him last autumn as the only player showing any commitment and passion. Incidentally he also scored 3 goals - not bad for a central defender who cost less than 2 million. That's half as many as Carroll (35M), Henderson (18M), Downing (20M) and Adam (7M) have scored between them all season.
Compare that lot with Torres, Alonso, Mascherano et all.
The fact is that Dalglish has bought second rate mediocre crap.
Thats just dribble, the headline is sensationalist
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what you fail to mention at any point is that yes there may have been bad signings (shall we compare other managers while we are at it, because that will be fun, maybe enlightening?) those signings where, as Rafa put it, cheap, and more importantly were deemed an upgrade to the person before them. If you take Kromkamp for example, he wasnt a world beater, but he filled a spot for circa £3m, and in less than 6 months was sold for circa £4m, bad or not, thats good business.
most of your 'bad' signings wer bought cheap or free and were sold at a profit, bad players or not, he made money on them, while putting liverpool at the forefront of the european game, he hedged his bets on many, knowing that 50% of all transfers dont work out, so a higher number, on younger players, but cheap measn that his chances of success in finding gems is going to be higher. Not unlike Wengers attitude
Insua shouldnt be on that list, thats a shocking addition, and Johnson is criminally underrated, high price but not a bad player and his worth to the team is better than i think you understand
For all the flak Rafa got/gets for his signings, the ones that didnt work, the bad ones, where sold on, usually at a profit and usually very quickly, if he made a mistake he was quick to rectify it, and its why the team constantly got better until he was underminded by tweedle dum and tweedle dee.