21 Jan 2013

'It wasn't possible' - Benitez claims LFC tried to sign exciting Santi Cazorla. Big loss...?

Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez (it still feels wrong saying that!) has revealed that he tried to sign Arsenal midfielder Santi Cazorla during his time at Liverpool FC.

Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Benitez - who admitted last year that he also tried to sign Stevan Jovetic, Sylvain Distin and Matthew Upson - praised the Spaniard for 'doing well' at Arsenal, and confirmed that he wanted him at Anfield:

"It wasn’t possible to sign him [Cazorla] because it was a big risk with the amount of money we had to spend.

"The chairman there [at Villareal] didn’t want to lose one of his best players. We knew he could be a great player, but we could not afford him"


Cazorla cost Arsenal £16m during the summer, and since arriving at the Emirates, the Spanish international has become an integral part of Arsene Wenger's team, grabbing seven goals and seven assists in 25 appearances for the Gunners.

In his recently released book 'Champions League Dreams', Benitez claimed that 'attempting to work in the transfer market that summer [2009] was almost impossible', and the insisted that he was blocked from buying at least three players that he feels would've helped Liverpool improve over the 2008-9 season. He explained:

"We knew we would need cover and support for Fernando Torres, as David Ngog was still developing, and we had raised the cash to find it. The player we identified to fill that role was Stevan Jovetic..

"Two [other] players we identified were Sylvain Distin...and Matthew Upson, both boasting abundant Premier League experience. Signing one of those two, plus the tall, powerful, intelligent Jovetic, would have given Liverpool the squad we needed to build on the previous year’s title challenge".


I have no doubt that Benitez experienced problems trying to convince Hicks and Gillett to give him more money, but he spent £37m on Glen Johnson, Alberto Aquilani and Sotiris Kyrgiakos that summer. No one twisted his arm to spend that money on those players.

Jaimie Kanwar

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50 comments:

  1. I thought Kyrgiakos was an alright squad player to have. How much did he cost us I can't remember.

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  2. about 1.5 mil i think

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  3. im so tired of benitez saying "i was gonna sign him!" he never mentions the bad players he wanted to sign only the good ones.

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  4. We've had worse players for more money!

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  5. Jaimie,
    you may want to get your facts right first before you start quoting figures.
    I know you never liked Rafa but to qoute wrong figures is out of order.

    Johnson cost £8 Million as Portsmouth owed us £10m for crouchie (had we not done that deal doubt we could have recovered the amount.

    Aquilani cost an initial £5m (as from the accounts released by roma) Rest on installments over the years

    Kyrgiakos cost 1.5m.

    Rafa raised over £35m through the sales

    £250,000 – Paul Anderson: £3m – Sebastian Leto: £3.5m – Alvaro Arbeloa: £30m – Xabi Alonso:

    He was unfortunate we had 2 clowns who detroyed our beloved club

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  6. No big loss u cant lose what u never could have.

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  7. Shankly once said: “At a football club there’s a holy trinity — the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques” 

    I don't think a manager should be criticized for what he spends, it is indeed the job of the board to negotiate fee's, Benitez identified those players as players that could of improved LFC. I think Johnson has shown what a great player he is and Kyrgiakos was a cult hero at the club for the short time he was here. The only signing there that didn't really cut the mustard was Alberto and I think it's a difficult one with Aquilani, he is obviously talented, but never really had the physique for our league. 

    I think, ultimately, LFC would still be in the top 4 if Rafa had stayed. The new owners would have given him the cash and I think players like Mascha and Fernando would have stayed.

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  8. Khalks - My figure comes directly from the club's own accounts, i.e. the official record of LFC's transfer spending. Your figures come from other websites and/or the media.

    It's you who needs to get your facts right, not me. 

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  9. Who on earth would do that?

    Bad players are irrelevant. That means he would have to bring them up in interviews apropos of nothing. He would just have to go 'Hey, remember Tomas Radzinski? I wanted to buy him!'.

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  10. We already get enough stick over luis,s diviing, with cazorla in the side we,d have been getting recommended for the olympics, lol

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  11. rafa with the money probably would have signed silva mata villa etc i think he could of attracted better players then jose at chelsea at the time if liverpool could of offered higher wages and outbid them.
    i know we didnt want players just here for the money or pay over the odds, but we lost out on a few to them for example

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  12. i apologise for not being clearer in my comment. i dont actually mean sit there and say oh i wanted to sign this crap player. i was just pointing out the fact im sick of hearing him say oh i wanted cazorla, jovetic, falcao and if im not mistaken he recently brought up Hazard?
    What good does saying "Yeah that player is good but i saw him first just couldnt work out a deal!" do for anyone?

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  13. Rafa heart and family is always with LFC . rafa with his team managment was not supported buy the owners and had to sell before he bought . Yes he got is wrong sometimes. and he wanted to do more but wasnt given support.
    His wife with the Hillsborough 96 was heavely involved and there family gave massive amounts of donations which needs to be respected. he (rafa) loves the club just as much as us fans. He had us win champions league and had us right up there for long time since he has gone its never been the same . Rafa signed pepe torres mascherano alonso agger skrtel arbeloa garcia massive positives for LFC. I say god bless you rafa and thank you and your family and hope the liverpool fans show there love for you back at Anfield when chelsea come. And in the tunnel would love to see if you touch the never walk alone sign. Now i support b RODGERS

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  14. But Rafa purchased over 60 players with "No money", I wonder what that figure would be if he actually had all the money he wanted! Maybe JK can come up with a transfer success percentage for all the players who actually turned out great out of the total

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  15. Will this man never stop to tell the world about all the players that he would have liked to sign, but chose to spend the money available on other players. It's all well blaming our previous owners, but at least some of the blame has to be laid at Rafa's door. Maybe Abramovich should tell him to concentrate on coaching and managing Chelsea.

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  16. Oh dear. So, according to your logic, if you sell me something, but I can't pay right now, I owe you 10m. Then you buy something from me for 8m, but at the same time you don't want to have the 10m back either, how much money did you get for the item I've bought from you? I would like to do some business with you. Lot's of profit await me.

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  17. Did you know that Rafa has had the two of the three biggest net spends our club has ever seen is his first two seasons? Add to that the biggest ever net spend up until then in his fourth season. He has spent over £100m NET in his first four years at Liverpool, but some people still think he didn't spend any money.

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  18. United have Nani Rooney Valencia Young and they are the darlings of the media

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  19. He tried to sign Mata Silva and Cazorla. Imagine the team we could of had with them three with Alonso and Masch.

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  20. It was too big a risk with the amount of money we had to spend...So how did we end up signing Aquilani for 20 million when he spent the better part of the previous two years on the treatment table? Surely that was a bit of a risk too...

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  21. Greg | Liverpool Kopites9:00 am, January 22, 2013

    He needs to paint a picture that shows that despite all the 'restrictions' he had with us, he still led us to some silverware. Marketing - especially since he might be out of a job again soon.

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  22. you mean Aquilani and Masch. Benitez drove Alonso away

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  23. If im not mistaken (and im sure someone will correct me), Roma owed us a small amount of money from the deal for Risse. Benitez was told he could only deal with teams who owed us money so he decided to spend all he had on a player (Aquilani) because he knew if he didnt spend it all he wouldnt see any of the leftover cash.

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  24. He was hamstrung by Parry, then by H&G. For the sake of a couple of £Mill we would have had players like Alves and Simao too.

    Call me a 'revisionist' if you like, but I don't recall him ever going to Old Trafford and playing the cowardly shite that our current manager did......

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  25. It does plenty of good. For Rafa.

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  26. This is off topic but with all the chaos going on over at Valencia FC, Maybe this would be a good time to try come in with a cheeky bid for players like Banega and Soldado? and adding Canales wouldnt hurt for another youth player.

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  27. Benitez also bought Alonso to the club

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  28. Ditto. How many players is that now? Man should have got on with the framework he was working within, instead of going after a truckload of players that were outside of the framework and complaining about it time and time again. Get on with the job as it is, not with the fantasy job. With the way he goes on, its like he is the only manager to not be given all the cash in the world. What next, he tried to sign Messi?

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  29. All in the name of messiah Rafa, regardless of common sense, that post got 5 likes. Amazing what blind faith can do.

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  30. Think it is about time for the owners of Valencia and Inter to come out and tell the world what they thought of him.

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  31. At the time, I didn't see the real urgent need to bring in a right back of that much value at the time and I still don't. He is a right back that only bloody defends well at left back! What the ****

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  32. In six visits to old trafford, Rafa has managed one win and five defeats, while Houllier has three wins, one draw and two defeats in as many visits. Not trying to take away anything from Rafa, still think that 4-1 win at old trafford was a very memorable one.

    And did you know that Rafa has spent over 100m NET in his first four years with us, and close to 200m in total? Hardly not been given any money.

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  33. I've stopped counting quite a while ago. Rafa obviously wanted to sign every famous player on the planet. Most managers want to sign them, but I only know one who constantly keeps telling the world how he was unable to do so.

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  34. I really liked Canales when he first came on the scene but the poor mite has picked up two big injuries in recent seasons that have disrupted him big time. I watched the EL game where he picked up the second one, felt sorry for him as he only just had recently came back from the first one. Not sure if it was related to his first one but far too risky to go for at the moment, as I don't think he has come back and played yet since that injury. A pity really, look really good initially. Still time of course, plenty of it but for now, not for us, imo.

    I like Banega though, although I think we/Rodgers have made our bed with Joe Allen. Don't get me wrong, I'd take Banega all day long, over Allen. 

    Feghouli has come along well now. One of those hyped up as the next Zidane players that was stumbling initially in Spain but last season, he improved a lot. 

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  35. Some people live in the past, in cloud-cuckoo-land and with rose-tinted glasses as well as blinkers on, all at the same time. That surely helps to avoid seeing anything close to resembling reality. Fact! :-)

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  36. I think I'll spare my comment, things could get nasty

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  37. Agree here Chan, Johnson is a good player but we didnt need him then, let alone for 20m. We lacked quality striking options and he complains of no funds!

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  38. I'm just saying that the performance last week was cowardly. And that stems from the manager. Utd have a poor midfield, susceptible defence and weak goalie. So we do fnck all til we're 2-0 down.

    Hodgson was the same - Gerrard clawed us back to 2-2 so Woy immediately made subs and threw the initiative back.

    I just want a bit more ambition than that. Even Newcastle had a go, ffs.

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  39. But Rafa never fielded a cautious line-up and never had avoiding defeat at all cost in his mind, right.

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  40. It depends on the value of the things in question actually...

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  41. Whats worse is that Rafa let Arbeloa go for like cough cough 4 million . Alonso left as well as Hyppia who still had plenty to offer. 

    only for Rafa to replace the above withJohnson, Aquilani and the Greek and look what happened in 09/10. :-o

    Now he is managing a team where the signing of players are made by Abramovich so when Rafa is shown the door at the end of the season then good old Rafa will still complain that he was never given money to spend. Ha Ha.

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  42.  You keep saying that he spent 100m NET but he's arguably left us still with the spine of the team in Agger, Reina, Johnson, Lucas, Skrtel and youngsters in Sterling, Suso and Shelvey. We have recouped closed to 70m from Torres, Kuyt, Aquilani and Insua. So isnt that just 30m net ?
    Rafa had his flaws but his transfers weren't one of them. The thing with transfers is that they dont paint a true picture when you look at them collectively.
    You mention the window when he bought Johnson, Aquilani and Kyrgiakos and say he could have spent it on Jovetic. Would you be saying the same if he hadn't signed a first-team RB and cover for CB and spent whatever else he had on a midfielder who he felt was the best option available for the money he had and went out and bought a second striker when more often than not he played with only Torres up front ? It usually is a couple of million here and there that matters between getting your target and a compromise.

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  43. I brought up that amount of money because some people still back Rafa's point of view that he hasn't had any money to spend.

    Transfers weren't one of Rafa's flaws? Erm, well, while he signed some truly great players, he has signed a very high number of duds. Some people praise him for bringing in the likes of Alonso and Torres, but blame Purslow, Moores, H&G for duds like Voronin or Degen or Dossena. Sorry, but I will argue against that for the rest of my life if need be.

    I can't recall mentioning that he should have signed Jovetic instead of Aquilani, but it is a good idea nevertheless.

    Compromise, yes, that is one thing Rafa wouldn't take or make. My guess would be, as I have mentioned before, that many managers would like to sign all the top talent that be, but almost all of them have to work within a budget. Granted, H&G didn't help, but Rafa has to learn that he too has to work within a budget, just like everybody else. He always want to have his cake and eat it, too. I wish him good luck in finding a job where he can put together his fantasy football team.

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  44. rafa was not given 100-200 in one hit like jose did, thats the difference, he wasted some yes, but talk about wheeler dealer.

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  45. Mourinho wasn't given 200m in one go either; that's a myth. And whether Benitez got in one go or not is irrelevant - it's just an excuse people use to somehow justify his poor buys. At the end of the day, what matters is how your spend the money you're actually given, whether it's over six years or one year. The accounts show that Benitez was handed £289m gross over 6 years. He bought some superb players, but he also bought a lot of crap.

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  46. Not at OT, because he recognised how much it meant to the fans.

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  47. Yes but, we'd have ended up with Gareth Barry if he'd have had his way. Erm, no thanks!

    Good signings, bad signings... all in the past.

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  48.  Garteh Barry isnt a bad player although he is more of a Mascherano type player rather than an Alonso type player.

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