This post has been updated. For Rafa's gross/net spend figures for 2004-2010, please go here: RAFA BENITEZ Net Spend Figures: 2004-2010
16 Dec 2009
EXCLUSIVE - Liverpool FC net spend figures for Rafa BENITEZ
This post has been updated. For Rafa's gross/net spend figures for 2004-2010, please go here: RAFA BENITEZ Net Spend Figures: 2004-2010
Jaime this is most interesting. Do you have comparitive stats for the other 3 of the "big" 4 for the same period? It would be useful to see how disadvantaged or advanatged we are compared to them
ReplyDeleteMoving the goalposts again Jaimie. Why weren't contracts in the Ged's figures then?
ReplyDeleteWhy not include wages too then? Isn't that all part of the 'budget'? Arsenal spent on average £13m more each year that Rafa has been at the club. No-one seems to mention that and yet that's exactly why he gets young talent.
ReplyDeleteWhy not include wages too then? Isn't that all part of the 'budget'? Arsenal spent on average £13m more each year that Rafa has been at the club on wages. No-one seems to mention that and yet that's a big part of the reason why he gets young talent.
ReplyDeleteNo, wages are not inlcuded in transfer fees.
ReplyDeleteThere is always going to be an excuse, isn't there?! It really is highly amusing. Just accept it these figures come directly from the club and there's nothing that you or any other Rafa apologist can do about it.
Yes, I have those figures. I'll be posting them as a comparison tommorrow.
ReplyDelete<span style="">Liverpool FC paid agents £6,657,305 between October 2008 and September 2009.</span>
ReplyDeleteThis I hope is also accounted for in your numbers Jamie.
No Jaimie. Once again you are missing the point. You included contract extensions into the budget as it suited you to do it for Rafa. I asked why you didn't do it for the rest. Then I said if we are talking about a larger thing than simply transfer fees why not include wages? Again, you responded like a child and spat out your dummy. Just stick to comparing like with like.
ReplyDeleteShane Lee> Of course he won't, cos it won't suit his agenda would it?
ReplyDeletep.s. I'm hardly a Rafa apologist: I like people to be treated fairly that's all. Another strawman argument of yours. Quelle surprise!
ReplyDeleteIntereststing jamie, will you account for the players that were at Man U and Chelsea before Rafa arrived? does this include cisse as a rafa signing?
ReplyDeleteI have a challenge for you since you've got good resources on these things, will be interesting and it will give a good year by year account of performance
can you compare for each year Rafa has been in charge the cost of each player at the club that played in the premier league and champions league for the 'big four', spurs and city that year? include only 1st team players. it ignores gross and net spend and shows the value of the squad that year, ignoring players that have left
i know gross and net are important, but the fact rafa signed Crouch 3 seasons ago makes no difference to our performance this season
cheers
look at the title. It's not accurate now is it? should be title "TRANSFER FEE Net Spent Figures". And to think English isn't my first language.
ReplyDeleteContract extensions from the past are already included in LFC's accounts (not that there have been that many). This year's 20m spend will be included in the 2009 annual report in the same way.
ReplyDeletep.s.
ReplyDeleteI'd like my comment that rebuffs your 'Rafa apologist' attack to be re-instated. It was a strawman argument based on an inherent fallacy. I thought you were all about the critical realism?
As you can see from the notes section of the article, agent's fees are included in the cost of aquiring a player's registration.
ReplyDeleteI have not included this years agent fees yet, but if I did, that would make Benitez's net spend even higher, not lower.
I'm waiting on clarification of how Agent fees are treated, and when I have that, I will include the figure.
Either way, it increases the gross spend and the net spend.
Are you also going to compare how much Man U, Chelsea & Arsenal spent when Houllier was in charge too? I think that would be far more interesting. If not, why not?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, this 'research' that you're undertaking, as it appears to me - so sorry if I've read incorrectly between the lines, is designed to do one thing only - enlarge your anti-Rafa snowball. Most Liverpool fans probably already know that only Chelsea have spent more.
Let's not forget that before 2004 Chelsea had been bought out by a Russian billionnaire throwing money around and also back then Man U where spending £30 mil on Ferdinand, £27 mil on Veron, another £27 mil or so on Rooney (was that before or after 2004? - can't remember).
Ok, how's this - it would be interesting to see the figures from when Houllier arrived up to now.
where did this 20m come from? if it is costs associated with signing players as purslow says, will chelsea's, arsenals and man u's similar costs be included
ReplyDeletearen't you missing a year then?
summer 04
summer 05
summer 06
summer 07
summer 08
summer 09
thats 6 transfer windows you only have five, wouldnt that then be a 15.9m average, or have you not included this season, in which case where is the 20m from?
As I explained in the article (including Purslow's comments), the 20m is the extra amount Benitez spent over the summer in extending contracts. That money could have been spent on another player, but it was spent on extending contracts instead. Thus, it is part of the transfer spending, just like Purslow states in his comments.
ReplyDeleteCosts associated with signing players are included in the aditions/disposals figures for each club. And when the 2009 report is publlished, the 20m will be reflected in the same way.
tut tut. Now you removed a well mannerd request to reinstate a fair point I made in defense of an ill-founded attack based on a categorical mistake from you.
ReplyDeleteFor shame little fascist dood.
I quite enjoy your site (and have only ever tried to educate you on the scientific process- which you remove as a personal attack lol) but your hypocrisy (the thing you rail against) is beginning to stink up the place.
What about the valuation of the current squad against what they cost? United sold Ronaldo for £80m last season so they can add that to what they have spent. Reina is worth at least £20m, Torres a conservative £65m, Mascha, £30m, Agger, £10m, to name a few. If one was sold (God forbid), the accounts would look a lot better like Uniteds.
ReplyDeleteHow surprising - anything I post about Rafa that doesn't paint him as the saviour will be labelled with the same accusation. I'm not passing judgement on the figures, I'm just making them available for information purposes. Your contention that I'm doing it to enlarge the 'anti-Rafa snowball' is just nonsense.
ReplyDeleteFigure are figures, and they should be in the public domain.
Keep making excuses to protect your precious deity though ;)
The fact is, not matter what figures are released, the pro-Rafa brigade will find some way of making an excuse.
If Purslow and Liverpool's accountants visited each fan in their homes and did a presentation of the figures, the pro-Rafa brigade would still not accept it.
Hi Jaimie
ReplyDeleteplease tell me what you make of the follwing
2007-2009 Wages
Chelsea £172'096
Man U £121'080
Arsenal £101'302
Liverpool £90'438
Source Deloitte
Wages play a big part, do you think this represents a massive disadvantage for Liverpool in terms of attracting and keeping players? Chelsea pay over 80m a year more on wages, man u pay 30m more
What are you on about?
ReplyDeleteHow can they add the 80m to what they spend?!
this really is the Twilight Zone. The purported value of the squad is irrelevant and is not included in the actual figures.
Re Ronaldo - the 80m ill be included in their 'disposals' section for 2008-9, i.e. money recouped through sales.
LFC nut - if you clog up this thread with one more pointless, snide post I will ban you permanently from commenting.
ReplyDeleteWages are important, yes, but the comparison is of limited utility. For example, United have won the title 3 years in a row depsite having a lower wage bill than Chelsea. Arsenal have own the title 3 times with a lower wage bill than both Chelse and Man U? Wages are not an accurate indicator of success.
ReplyDeleteIf u claim u are just stating facts and figures, then why are u dragging ur feet to publish the ones the rest asked for? They are asking for a complete picture instead of just a snapshot, isn't that fair enough?
ReplyDeleteWell done Jaimie. My rebuking you personal attacks is clutter? You are a jumped up ego-centric little tyke :D Why do you even bother pretending that you want debate? Delete away. You horrid little 'im taking my ball home' twerp.
ReplyDeletenot bad only net spent of 95.8mill over 5 seasons , but questions need to be asked why ? at the end of ther day rafa has wasted 292 mil !! the current squad shows it , its not good enough , this is all down to the manager . When will the fans wake up and see this ????
ReplyDeleteIs it in your opinion that the day a new manager arrives, he starts on equal footing with the others? Is it in your opinion that Liverpool's squad was superior to the rest when Rafa signed?
ReplyDeleteSo why are contract extensions under transfers and not under wages????!!! Consistency and clarity are lacking in your research and it's easy to play with the figures to suit your own obvious agenda. Transfers should be clearly defined as the cost of acquiring new players or the funds transferred between two DIFFERENT CLUBS for the gaining the right of new players' registration and NOT contract extensions which should be considered an internal cost. I could easily argue that ferguson spent 94mi last season. Yes 94mil on acquiring clowns for the old trafford entertainment!!!!
ReplyDelete<span style=" "></span>So why are contract extensions under transfers and not under wages????!!! Consistency and clarity are lacking in your research and it's easy to play with the figures to suit your own obvious agenda. Transfers should be clearly defined as the cost of acquiring new players or the funds transferred between two DIFFERENT CLUBS for gaining the right of new players' registration and NOT contract extensions which should be considered an internal cost. I could easily argue that ferguson spent 94mi last season. Yes 94mil on acquiring clowns for old trafford's entertainment programme!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'll do things in my own time. Stop moaning about nothing. I want to highlight Liverpool figures first individuall, and then do a comparison. This all takes time. I fyou want the figures quicker, go and compile them yourself.
ReplyDeleteOk. So once you've published the spend of the other 3 clubs you're not going to compare and comment? Fair enough.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if Purslow and Liverpool's accountants visited my house and did a presentation of the figures going back more than 10 years, I'd be very interested. And figures going back 10 years was my original point that you didn't comment on.
if wages are not used then what was the £20m for when extending the players contracts which you included? obviously there were no transfer fees so i guess i was wrong to assume the £20m was wages so what was it that the £20m covered? just trying to understand. thanks
ReplyDeleteI will comment on Benitez vs Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, but on Benitez vs Houllier.
ReplyDeleteAnd when I have the time, I will compare the last 10 years. This all takes time, you know.
Jaimie,
ReplyDeleteIntangible Assets are the total cost of a players transfer fee plus contract split over the course of that contract. Hence, the figures show the total of all contracted players adjusted annually to take into account how many years are left on each contract plus contract extensions and new signings. Therefore, you can not include the £20m (although this suits your argument) in the 2009 figures as this amount will be spread over the cost of each contract extension etc. This also stops any direct comparison with the past as fixed increases to contracts signed before Rafa took over will be included in these figures. Please dont try to bamboozle fans with figures that are somewhat different to how you would like to paint them!
Read, absorb and understand what I've written. Then come back and try and make a vlaid comment on the subject. Thanks.
ReplyDeletePathetic Jaimie. You're a dastardly liar. Reply to the man's remarks, rather than blast him with your snide, rude remarks. Answer him: why do you include wages if you stated many times that wages are not an accurate indicator of success?
ReplyDeleteUnited have won the title 3 years in a row despite having a lower NET TRANSFER BUDGET than Chelsea. Arsenal have won the title 3 times with a lower NET TRANSFER BUDGET than both Chelsea and Man u? NET SPEND is not an accurate indicator of success.
ReplyDelete(please remember that Arsenal have won nothing since Chelsea overtook them in terms of wages and spending on players)
the fact that you don't think wages matter just because they work in rafa's favour makes you just as biased as the rafa lovers you are always having a go at
wages play a massive role in success, anyone in football will tell you that, they are the facts, DEAL WITH IT as you would say
http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2009/11/what-shock-liverpool-to-start-with-8.html
ReplyDeleteIf that doesn't prove your anti-Benitez slant and vitriol, I don't know what does.
To say that you maintain objectivity on this blog is a farce. you just want Rafa out. You hate the man with passion, like all those other armchair fans. I do not intend on seeing your reply or your poison-spreading blog at all.
Keep up the hate of Rafa!
P.S. I don't worship him in the same way that you don't worship your phallum. Actually I believe it is the duty of the fan to be behind the manager, especially when things go bad. Where were you last year when we were consistent force in the top of the table.
Farewell, Mr. Anti-Benitez
95.8 Mil net spend, that is bloody great.
ReplyDeleteSo Rafa only has 2 Gerard players left in the squad and bought a whole team for only 95 mil. That means (taking the first 11) if Rafa sold his first 11 (not including squad players and Carra and Gerrard) he would be about 46 mil net in the black. If you added squad players he could be 60 mil net in the black.
Well done Rafa. I guess what i am getting at is Rafa's squad is worth more than 95 mil, which suggests to me he has bought and especially sold well.
Costs arising from extending contracts include re-siging on fee for the player, agent's fees, bonues, tansfer levy etc.
ReplyDeleteIf you look back through Liverpool's past, there are not many signifcant contract extentions on the scale of Gerrard, Torres, Kuyt et al.
For whatever reason, the 20m part of the budge that could have gone on buying another player this summer went on extending those contracts. Thus, it is included as part of the transfer gross spend.
As I understand it:
1. There was a specific timescale/budget in place for the extending of the contracts of Gerrard/Torres etc.
2. After last season ended though, Benitez wanted all the deals tied up earlier than projected.
3. As such, the only way to do this was to use the bmoney from Alonso's sale to get it done over the summer.
4. It was Benitez's decision to use the money for contracts instead of using it for new players.
Jamie Kanwar is one boring, manipulative manc scum fan.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, it all balances out. It is all money recouped spent by the club. Whether the money is paid/recouped now or next year, the total anount for the year in which the transaction/event took place is accurate.
ReplyDeleteThe same principle will apply in any examination of net spending - every net spending figure currently out there will be the same re contracts. The difference here is these figures are official, irrefutable club figures - they haven;t been arrived at by adding up the alleged cost of players from 100 unreliable sources and proclaiming the end result to be accurate.
deplorably, that is more true than not.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know what United's net transfer budget is? How do you know it is lower than Chelsea's? Please post evidence for these contentions.
ReplyDeleteI dont dispute the figures, just the way that you are trying to present them.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your point?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that matters re tranfer spending (IMO) is how the manager spends what he has. Take away net spend and everything else - when a manager has cash in his hands to spend, he chooses what players to sign. That is how to judge how good they are in the transfer market.
Benitez has spent 292m. That is the money he has had in this hands to spend on who he chooses.
Does our current squad reflect that investment?
NO.
I would disagree. Rafa has had 96 mil to spend (net spend) Does our squad reflect that? Yes and them some
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. Your analysis proves that Rafa is the right man for the job as there is a direct correlation between annual net spend and performance as measured by points won. 28M net spend in 04-05 and we won 24 more points in 05-06, only 4.9M net spend in 05-06 resulted in 14 fewer points in 06-07, 15.6M in 06-07 equalled 10 more points in 07-08, and his highest net spend 29.9M in 07-08 meant our highest points tally (86) in 20 years and best position (2nd). It took Chelsea 100+M and Mourinho to go from 2nd to Champions the next year and even the great Wenger has not won the Premiership since he did so in Rafa's first season in charge.
ReplyDeleteplease give me your evidence to back up your claim that wages 'are not an accurate indicator of success'. please tell me why you only count figures that show benitez in a bad way. and when i point out an obvious disadvantage for rafa you dimiss it. please stop having a go at people for blind bias when you suffer from it yourself
ReplyDeleteplease address the wages issue if you can
Net spend is what people cling to as some kind of evidence that a manager is good in the transfer market.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly does the 95m net spend prove that Benitez has been successl in the transfer market?! All it proves is that he recouped a decent amount of money for players, many of whom he sold because they were alienated by him.
He has spent 292m! That is the important figure here. That is the money he has had to build our squad. And is that investment refelcted in the quality and breadth of our current squad?! No!
I can praise Benitez for recouping money on players but that is not a relevant facor when considering if he has SPENT the money he's had wisely.
please give me your evidence to back up your claim that wages 'are not an accurate indicator of success'. please tell me why you only count figures that show benitez in a bad way. and when i point out an obvious disadvantage for rafa you dimiss it. please stop having a go at people for blind bias when you suffer from it yourself
ReplyDeleteplease address the wages issue if you can
Net spend is what people cling to as some kind of evidence that a manager is good in the transfer market.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly does the 95m net spend prove that Benitez has been successl in the transfer market?! All it proves is that he recouped a decent amount of money for players, many of whom he sold because they were alienated by him.
He has spent 292m! That is the important figure here. That is the money he has had to build our squad. And is that investment refelcted in the quality and breadth of our current squad?! No!
I can praise Benitez for recouping money on players but that is not a relevant facor when considering if he has SPENT the money he's had wisely.
Thanks for this. Your analysis proves that Rafa is the right man for the job as there is a direct correlation between annual net spend and performance as measured by points won. 28M net spend in 04-05 and we won 24 more points in 05-06, only 4.9M net spend in 05-06 resulted in 14 fewer points in 06-07, 15.6M in 06-07 equalled 10 more points in 07-08, and his highest net spend 29.9M in 07-08 meant our highest points tally (86) in 20 years and best position (2nd). It took Chelsea 100+M and Mourinho to go from 2nd to Champions the next year and even the great Wenger has not won the Premiership since he did so in Rafa's first season in charge.
ReplyDeleteNet spend is what people cling to as some kind of evidence that a manager is good in the transfer market.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly does the 95m net spend prove that Benitez has been successl in the transfer market?! All it proves is that he recouped a decent amount of money for players, many of whom he sold because they were alienated by him.
He has spent 292m! That is the important figure here. That is the money he has had to build our squad. And is that investment refelcted in the quality and breadth of our current squad?! No!
I can praise Benitez for recouping money on players but that is not a relevant facor when considering if he has SPENT the money he's had wisely.
What happened to the wages we paid to Xabi, Keane and Arbeloa.
ReplyDeleteI think that cancels out the new contracts to Gerrard, Kuyt, Torres and the rest of the players that got new deals.
If you count new wages then you will also need to include wages for the players that left.
You use gross spend when it suits and state that net spend isn't relevant then change to using it as an example to back up an argument about wage cost. Arsenal/Chelsea above.
ReplyDeleteYou still haven't answered the many questions asking why contract extensions should be used for this year for Liverpool FC solely and not for any other year for any other club.
It wouldn't be because you are trying to deflect away from the FACT he spend £0 in the last 2 windows?
£0 = net. i.e the cost to the club, the only measurement.
Your articles are getting worse.
How has Rafa had 292 m to spend?
ReplyDeleteDude, if i buy a house for 1 mil, sold it for 1 mil and bought another house for 1 mil, how much have i spent? not 2 mil.
Rafa has had to deal in upgrades since he has been at Liverpool, buy a player, sell him for more and then buy a better upgraded player for the profit. So i put it to you Rafa has only spent 96 m in real terms and we can boast the talents of Torres, Youssi, Kuyt, Riera, Reina, Agger, Johnson to name but a few
No you don't! This is so illogical it's untrue.
ReplyDeleteI'm using the CLUB'S figures! They are not mine! The club does not include wages in transfer accounting, so why should I?!
The renewed contracts are not about wages - they are all the other expenses that go into extending contracts. Top players like Gerrard, Torres etc al get re-sigining on bonuses, and there are various other expenses. I wish people would stop trying to muddy the waters re this. You have the friggin' MANAGING DIRECTOR stating that this money has been spent. He even calls it 'real money'. It is not wages that are going to be paid out in the future - it is, as Purslow says, costs assoiated with the extensions, the likes of which Liverpool have never experienced before.
As people are earnestly trying to point out, why include the £20m for player contract renegotiations? Simply because it was highlighted by Purslow? Why not include the contract extension money for other players over the last five years? Why not include it in Houllier's figures? Will you be digging up this information and including it when you cover other clubs?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering why you called this an 'EXCLUSIVE', as net spend figures have been done to death all over the web over the last year. Now it turns out you are skewing the figures by including one instance of contract negotiations. Can you not see how this appears unbalanced?
You accuse 'pro-Rafa' fans of being blinkered, yet you do yourself no favours at all by constantly digging up ways to skew what might otherwise be a balanced argument, therefore forcing people (like me and the majority of your commentors) to attempt to defend the manager or whoever is the subject or your current rant.
As other commentors have said in the past, your total lack of an ability to rationally view arguments and knee-jerk reaction of "My god how you people be so blind blah blah blah" is inflammatory, devalues your articles and makes a mockery of your apparent desire for 'critical debate'.
Hey Jamie, why not acknowledge the obvious? Notwithstanding our very recent woes, Rafa's done ok given the much-lower wages and - I assume - the lower net spend than our main competitors. We have a squad worth exponentially more than it cost; we have several key players worth exponentially more than they cost; and we have won more silverware than Arsenal during Rafa's reign. And we won a trophy for keeps that Chelsea would die for! For god's sake, it ain't all doom and gloom. Lighten-up fella! Sure these are awful times but the team is fundamentally the same as last year -which is what you would expect given the market and our financial limitations.
ReplyDeleteGoes to show that Rafa spends more than any other manager in the premier and still has not got a clue. Only way liverpool can hope to compete with a class team like man utd is to get rid of this idiot. Saying that l do not know how liverpool can hope to compete with the big teams like man uts and chelsea, even more now that city are improving. Top 4 days are over. Time everyone started supporting a better team, there are quite a few of them now.
ReplyDeleteThis really is hilarious - the lengths people go to to justify Benitez's spending.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter what you recoup, the ACTUAL SPEND AT THE TIME i.e. the money you ACTUALLY SPEND ON PLAYERS is the gross amount.
Liverpool ACTUALLY paid 20m for Robbie Keane. They did not ACTUALLY pay 12m for him AT THE TIME.
At the time, the 20m could have been spent on anyone - Benitez chose to spend it on Keane. Just because he recouped 12m 6 months later does not mean that he did noy ORIGINALLY spend 20m of the club's money.
Why is this so difficult to understand?!
And using your example: YES, you have spent 2m. You have spent 1m on 2 separate occasions, thus the ACTUALL spend is 2m. The net spend is a completely different thing. Just because you sold the house for 1m does not mean you did NOT spend 1m in the first place to acquire it.
Using net spend in this way is the most ridiculously skewed way of looking at spending ever. And the reason you do it is because you are not being objective; you're so in love with Benitez you cannot acceot that he has ACTUALLY spent 292m.
People are have a different opinion to yours are not 'Rafa apologists' Jaimie. They just don't always agree with you.
ReplyDeleteJamie, why is NET spend so important. If you are dealing with not a lot of money then don't you have to spend it on a lot of players in order to have a good squad and then upgrade them year on year? Chelsea and Man U have had the luxury of spending big on a few player which means they will not need to upgrade, where as we had to spend it on cheaper players. If I were share trading and I bought and sold shares, would you look at my NET spend too rather than my profits? What a load of nonsense!
ReplyDeleteI don't have an issue with wages - I did not bring wages into thie debate. Other people have done that because they can't hack the spending figures. As a result, they try and bring in extraneous things into the debate.
ReplyDeleteThe club does NOT include wages in int transfer accounting. I am using the club's figures, ergo I have not included them. No club does this! It is entirely irrelevent to this discussion. Wages is a completely separate issue and another discussion alltogether.
This is about how much money has been spent and recouped. That's it.
These figures would be very interesting if they weren't ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.
ReplyDeleteunless you're going to include the cost of contract extensions on all of your figures, for the previous benitez years, the houllier stats and your upcoming ones on other clubs, these figures are INVALID.
"Just accept it these figures come directly from the club and there's nothing that you or any other Rafa apologist can do about it"
rubbish. be consistent with your figures and then they can make sense. putting in the contract extensions has nothing to do with how well or badly he has done in the transfer market. plus, who cares about your 'source' at the club. unless you can quote someone who is accountable, don't mention it. we can all say we have 'sources'. look at any made up story in any tabloid and it's full of them.
for the record, i think benitez has been hit and miss in his transfer dealings.
I have not said net spend is important! I've repeatedly argued the opposite!
ReplyDeleteThe facts are thus:
Benitez has spent 292m. In other words, this the specific amount of money he has to do with as he pleases when it comes to buying players.
292m.
Money has been recouped along the way, but that does not change the fact that originally had 292m to spend!
The current squad (and its achievements) does not reflect the value of the money spent over the last 5 years. That is why we are in the sh*t - our squad is not good enough because money has been spent unwisely.
A comparison between Benitez's net spend and Chelsea, Arsenal and Man Utd's net spend is ultimately pointless. Rafa Benitez has had to completely rebuild since joining Liverpool, which is why there are only a couple of players left from the Houllier era. United, Chelsea and Arsenal have only had to add to their already world class squads during that time, and replace older players. Benitez had to start behind them and try to catch up, they have improved their level at the same time, meaning it is more difficult to catch up to their level. United and Chelsea have been able to spend £25-30m on single players over the past few seasons, Benitez's most expensive player is Torres who cost £20.2m (based on the exchange rate at the time).
ReplyDeleteHow can i be skewed when this is how business reports financial numbers?
ReplyDeleteNet is the most important number when ever talking about money..
1-1+1 = 1 not 2.
Yes Rafa has bought flops. But he has spent 96 mil of Liverpools FC money and the squad we have today is better than what 96 mil should buy.
If all his players had worked out then he would never of had 292m to spend on new players. If he didn't sell his players he never would have had 292m to spend. He has infact spent 96m to get the squad he has now.
I'm not saying it has been perfect and he has bought flops, but to this date i think he has in balance done well in the market
No - everyone who disagrees with the CLUB'S FIGURES (!) does so because they can't bear to have Rafa placed in any kind of bad light. It is only the Rafa apologists who disagree, and I know because I've crossed swords with the same opeople over and again.
ReplyDeleteThey will keep finding new ways to try and discredit the figures; they will try and muddy the waters; veer the discussion off track, and incorporate completely irrelevent details.
Examples on this thread:
* Bringing wages into the equation (irrelevent)
* Deliberately misunderstanding how the 20m for contract extensions is made up (i.e. it does not include waged)
* Vehemently arguing that net spend is the ACTUAL amount Benitez has spent, when this is quite clearly a load of rubbish. Benitez did not spend -20m on Alonso, did he?! He ACTUALLY spent 10.5m. That is how ridicuolous the Rafa apologists make themselves appear.
I'm sorry just because the funds used to extend contracts could've been used for transfers doesn't mean the contract extensions should be classified as money spent by the Rafa on transfers. Do you also account for other team's contract extensions when you do your comparisons?! AND let's not forget that the reason why the extensions to key players' contracts were made in the first place was to show RBS and potential investors that the club has its most valuable assets secured for the long term and to avoid losing stars for cheap like what happened with owen
ReplyDeleteHere we go with another new excuse. Now, apparently, a comparison between Liverpool, Arsenal, Manu and Chelsea over the last 5 years is 'pointless' and blah blah blah. It is not pointless at all. It is the only way to gain an accurate picture of compariative spending success.
ReplyDeleteI wait with bated breath for the next new excuses to arrrive.
When Rafa came in he had to replace the squad at ALL levels including the youth setup. He was never going to do this in 1 year or even 5 years! Liverpool have never had the money that Manure or the Chavs have had so building a squad of players was always going to take time and money. The club were not in a position to buy one expensive player and then suddenly win the league. He had to find replacements for many players and positions so he had to spread the money he has had across all levels of the squad and not just the first team- and his job is still not done. But year on year he has improved the squad. Soon we he has money to spend it will be on top quality players and the mix of the entire squad will be better and players will be coming through the youth setup. Rafa has done brilliantly with the resources he has had.
ReplyDeleteSorry Jaimie, just because Purslow tried to put some spin on our lack of summer spending by suggesting contract extensions used up the transfer budget doesn't mean you can use it as fact it without questioning the validity of the statement.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen contract extensions used as part of the transfer budget. If you apply this criteria to Benitez then you have to do the same for every other club.
I really think your transfer analysis is very useful and look forward to seeing the comparisons with the other top clubs over the past 5 years. However, trying to squeeze this extra £20m in is very disingenuous. Surely you can see it for what it is. A competent Executive making the best of a bad situation by twisting the figures a bit, to try and save face for the owners.
As for you asertion that gross spend is a better figure than net spend, well this just beggers belief and I have to question either your intelligence or integrity. I believe you are intelligent so I'll ask you to be a bit more genuine with us.
If gross spend is more important than net spend, then ponder this little conundrum. Imagine we were a selling club with negative growth.
What if over 5 years, the gross spend was £300m and the gross sales £400m. The net spend of the club would be -£100m.
Would your argument still be 'but he has spent £300m', 'gross spend is the important statistic' etc etc. No, this would be absurd.
A crude example but your argument is crudely ignorant of basic economic facts. Any gross expenditure figure is only given meaning or relevance when compared to a net expenditure figure. Without it is is a meaningless figure.
£292m spent is a lot of money but he has had to sold £196m over the same time period. The net effect is that he has spent £96m improving the squad. £96m is the only important figure. Forget the rest Jaimie.
You can use all the fairytale economics you like but this is an undeniable, black and white truth and if you fail to see this, then you are more baised against Benitez than you accuse the 'rafa brigade' of being biased for him.
Mark
What a crock! It's all about money spent. Wages play a HUGE role. Wenger decides to spend Arsenal's money on wages, that's his philosophy and all counts to the overall club's expenditure. Let's not forget also that Rafa has earnt the club money by reaching 2 CL finals, including a win. That in itself generates a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteYour inclusion of contract extensions in the transfer budget is quite frankly ludicrous. That is all related to wages and should form part of the wage bill, in the same way I am sure you won't include the cost of contract extensions within the other 3 teams' transfer budget.
I personally think Rafa's time is up, but skewed research like this is just annoying and typical
Nickname - what part of ACTUAL SPEND do you not understand?
ReplyDeleteExample: Liverpool bought Xabi Alonso for 10.5m
They sold him for 30m.
Using your logica, if I was to ask you how much Liverpool paid for Alonso, you would say 'We bought him -20m (!)
Can you see how utterly ridiculous this is? We paid a minus figure for someone?! How the hell does that work?!
The ACTUAL AMOUNT spent at the time was 10.5m.
Over the last 5 years, Benitez has spent 292m - he has wasted a considerabe amount of that on players who have failed or been alienated by him.
The only people who use the net spend as some kind of actual figure for spending are those who are trying to defend Benitez and make his spending seem better.
Anyone objective and fair-minded understands that the important fuigure here is 292m - the actual amount of money spent; the actual amount Benitez had to play with.
These statistics cleary prove Rafa had money to spend. Chelsea did in Romans first couple of years have a budget incomparible to us, United and Arsenal and this summer Man City were the same. However what we can conclude is every club apart from Chelsea in 2004 and 2005 and Man City 2009 have had to buy and sell to balance the books.
ReplyDeleteThe teams in the Champions league have the extra money for example £20mil to spend on additions which we have been doing every year. So Rafa has no legs to stand on. Also our spending is alot more than Arsenal.
Can the "In Rafa We Trust" lovers just not accept what is in black and white. Rafa will continue to manipulate your weak sole. HE HAS HAD MONEY TO SPEND AND WASTE.
Exactly, Kash. It is so exceedinlgly simple to see but Rafa's supporters are so pigheaded they refuse to acepot it. According to them, we paid -20m for Xabi Alonso. That is how his transfer is accounted for in the real world, apparently.
ReplyDeleteSo if anyone asks you in the future, just tell them we spent -20m on Alonso.
Thanks for spending the time to dig out the figures, Jamie. For me, it seems fair enough to take either spend or wages or contracts costs, or indeed results, as separate measures of success. It also makes sense to look at all the financial figures together too. But it does not make sense to put merely two of them together (spend and contract extensions).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I'm intrigued by the mystery over the 20m on contact extensions is there a break-down of exactly what it was spent on, as opposed to the general explanation you have given so far?
Thirdly, the amount of spend on transfers is dictated also by the fluctuations in the market prices of players across the board and the rise and fall of the pound.
Whatever measure you take is not going to be scientific (the "figures plain and simple"). A full analysis would require taking into account the context, eg how strong was Rafa's squad when he took over compared to rivals', how much had earlier disadvantages compared to rivals' handicapped him.
Similarly, you might judge the 292m to be an inefficient spend now, given the loss of form and recent results, but judgement of the value of virtually the same squad last May would produce a much more positive view. Which all goes to show it really is difficult to reach an objective conclusion about what the figures show.
So it's commendable that you are presenting real figures, and thanks for taking the time to dig them out, but I don't believe you can genuinely assess progress or lack of it by such a narrow set of measures.
<span style=" ">I'm sorry just because the funds used to extend contracts could've been used for transfers doesn't mean the contract extensions should be classified as money spent by the Rafa on transfers. Do you also account for other team's contract extensions when you do your comparisons?! AND let's not forget that the reason why the extensions to key players' contracts were made in the first place was to show RBS and potential investors that the club has its most valuable assets secured for the long term and to avoid losing stars for cheap like what happened with owen
ReplyDelete</span>
Give it up Kanwar , your a manc. everyone knows this.
ReplyDeleteis the 20m included in your 95.8 m figure?
ReplyDeletedoes rafa's budget include cisse?
He is right, there are 6 transfer windows there (inc summer and winter)
ReplyDeleteHe started 04/05 season, when he sold owen and that amd won champs league then 05/06 06/07 07/08 08/09 09/10(which is the 1 for 20m contract extentions, that means net spend would be lower at 15.9. Actually just looking at that table whats happened to this season if you included that 20m purslow was on about which year did you add that too?
When you do the comparison with the other 3 teams I expect to see costs associated with their contract extensions also included. Seeing as they pay much higher wages then it's fair to assume that the "costs" as you put it, associated with those contract extensions will be more as agents will take a percentage and signing on bonuses are bound to be bigger, agreed?
ReplyDeleteThe figures arnt that bad though. So why would we make excuses
ReplyDeletecompare the wage bill then
ReplyDeletecompare prize money earned related to money spent
compare champions league earnings related to money spent
net spending is not the ONLY way, you need the whole financial picture and that includes WAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are right the current squad does not represent 292m. But Liverpool are not 292 m out of pocket for this squad so this doesn't matter. They are in fact 96m out of pocket and the squad is well worth it, including youth!
ReplyDeleteHe has indeed spent 292m but since he never got huge amounts to spend in one go his has had to do it slowly and by upgrading (selling for more and buying on the cheap). I have no idea how our net spend compares to the other top 4 but 96 mil is good for the squad he has.
If you gave Rafa (or any manager) and told him to buy a whole squad plus youth for 96 mil and for it to be as good as hours i'm sure they will be hard pressed. Saying that, i'm not sure you could do it with 292m.
Net spend is the important figure, now tell me what the other top 4, top 6 or even the top 20 has for net
you cant really use net or gross transfer figures to judge success because there are too many other factors that are all linked. for example lets say rafa wants a top striker who costs £30m there is no chance he will get that money to do that so he has to do a gamble and buy a £5-10m player who turns out not to work so he sells him. Because the player failed he will go down in value so lfc will get less money from his sale. rafa still needs a striker so he uses the money recouped plus say another £5m to make up the difference. do this for 3 seasons and gross figure shows he spent approx £30m and waisted it. If he was buying first choice players then its fair to judge. also though utd have spent a fortune on individual players each year and built a great squad. that great squad was in place when rafa joined lfc. rafa had many many players to buy where utd only need to replace the odd one. finally, i understand ronaldo was nailed on for lfc for approx £6m 2 seasons before utd got him but the club wouldnt spend that much money on a unknown kid. if they did and rafa sold him this year for £80m then the figures would look amazing for rafa so you see figures alone wont give you any sort of accurate picture.
ReplyDeletewhy are wages irrelevant when they play a key role in attracting and keeping layers happy
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter if there are 6 transfer windows!! How many more attempts are people going to make to get Benitez's figures down?! Look at the table (and at the smippets form the reports: the accounting year runs from July - July. Benitez has only been here for 5 and bit years, not 6.
ReplyDeleteWhen this year is over, and all the transfer spending up to and incuding 31 july 2010 has been concluded, then it will be 6 years .
Since this season is only 4 months old, transfer spending post 31 July is included obviously. We are looking at total spending since Benitez arrived, are we not?! The 20m is included in the 2008 figure.
Jamie,
ReplyDeleteYou are the funny one. Of course we all understand what actual spend and net spend means but the fact is, you can't use the actual spend to quanify how well or badly Rafa has done. You should look at his Net spend. Think about it, if I bought a house for 500K and then sold it for 700K and then bought a place for 1.5M later on. Does that make me a worst manger than someone who spent 1.5m on a property in the first place? Since on your logic, I have actually spent 2M where the other manager have an actual spend of only 1.5m despite the fact that my net spend was 1.3M rather than 1.5M??
Do you now see how ridiculous you are?
And if we had the wage figurs, you would come up with some other way to muddy the waters. 'But you haven't considered player bonuses, or how much they get for scoring a hat0trick' or some other such nonsense.
ReplyDeleteI can't get over your lack of logic. He has not had 292m to do as he pleases. It's the net spend figure that is important here, not the gross amount. So he has had 95.8m to do what he pleases PLUS whatever he manages to make by selling assets he has brought in in the first place! you go on about REAL money, well the REAL money is the cost to the club and that's 95.8m, not this gross £292m. It's why companies are interested in profit! MAking revenues of £100m is useless if your losses are £150m.
ReplyDeleteSo net spend is the key figure.
I look forward to you including contract extensions as part of your comparison with the other 3 teams. It may not be part of wages as you say, but you may as well throw your "research" in the bin if you don't include those figures for Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal...seeing as they spend more on wages, their costs will be more than likely be higher.
Mark here again.
ReplyDeleteJaimie, your -20m analysis of Alonso is actually embarassing. Are you joking with us now. In my last post I said I thought you were intelligent but I have my doubts now. The truth is that Xabi alone did cost us -£20m. It called making a PROFIT Jaimie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How much of the £292m weas only available because of player sales? Think about it.
A squad is improved when players are bought and weakened when players are sold. If Rafa bought Xavi for £40m in January and sold Mascherano for £25m, the squad would be £15m better off, not £40m better off.
During his time as manager, the undeniable fact is that £96m has been invested in transfers. If you can't see this then you lack intelligence.
I think you have a good site here and it is obviously successful so fair play to you. But I suspect you realised long ago that controversy brings web traffic, and set about being as controversial as possible in order to make your site more succesful.
Please back up why 295 figure is the only relevant figure, i agree with nickname, hes had 95 mill, the rest was made up of sales so when you consider torres is prob now worth 60/70m alone, our squads value is more than the net spend. Quite incredible.
ReplyDeleteYes he spent 290m or whatever but would you say thats what our squad is worth. You cant because part of that 290m was players who arnt at the club.
To put this simply if i bought 2 players for 10m each, i have spent 20m, and the squad is worth 20 m, if i then sold 1 of them for 10m, and replaced him with another 10m player then we would have spent 30m but the squads value would still be 20m, can you not see thats why net is more important than gross.
When i get my wage at the end of the month, i dont get the gross amount, i get the net amount, therefore with regards to my spending the gross figure is irrelevant.
If we had spent 295 net i would be far more concerned that we havent won the league but in fact because of rb having to sell to buy and getting a squad for the complete cost of 95 million i think that is incredible!!!!
Jamie have you been deleting some posts. I just read a really good long post from someone who proved you are indeed an anti Rafa fanboy, i did a refresh and now it is gone. Oh dear!
ReplyDeleteYour wording is clearly silly, but with ALonso Benitez spent £10m and made a profit of £20m on him. If I buy a house for £100000 and sell it for £200000 then I have £100000 in the bank. I don't consider that I've made a £100,000 loss!
ReplyDeletewas Rafa given 292mil on day one and been told, "Go ahead and build a team?" or was he given a relatively small budget that somehow he managed to maximize by making incremental upgrades time after time through wheeling and dealing?
ReplyDeleteThis argument is ridiculous Jamie. How can you use Actual spend as an indicator of how wisely someone has bought? Depending on your situation. If you have a lot of money (like Man U and Chelsea) then you can afford to spend BIG on a few players and the likelihood of them being a successful signing are substantially higher. However, if you didn't have big money to spend in the first place, you have to wheel and deal and try to buy cheap players and then sell them for profit in order to fund bigger signings? Does that not make sense to you?
ReplyDeleteIf we had money like Man U or Chelsea, players like Bellamy, Crouch, Pennant and even Benny maynot have been bought. The fact is that we cannot put all eggs in one basket and buy just 1 big player and hope he comes good, which is the reason why he had to buy a number of players. Cast your mind back to the squad we had in 2004. If he just bought one excellent player, do you think we would have been a great team?? It's a simple concept that most people will understand but for some reason, you don't seem to get??? Are you playing a joke on us? It's not April fools is it?
Fact is he was never given a 292mil and a whole brochure to choose from. He was given a second -pick of catalogue of players to accept and accomodate. For examples' sake. No you can't have Alves, you only get enough money to sign Pennant.
ReplyDeleteNet spend comparison since O'Neill took over Villa
ReplyDeleteO'Neill
2006 14'010
2007 6'250
2008 45'090
2009 19'050
Total 84'400
Rafa
2006 14'010
2007 39'850
2008 6'250
2009 0'950
Total 62'710
source transfer league.com
O'neill has never finished above rafa despite a higher net spend since arriving
<span><span style=" ">“</span></span>This argument is ridiculous Jamie. How can you use Actual spend as an indicator of how wisely someone has bought? Depending on your situation. If you have a lot of money (like Man U and Chelsea) then you can afford to spend BIG on a few players and the likelihood of them being a successful signing are substantially higher. However, if you didn't have big money to spend in the first place, you have to wheel and deal and try to buy cheap players and then sell them for profit in order to fund bigger signings? Does that not make sense to you?
ReplyDeleteIf we had money like Man U or Chelsea, players like Bellamy, Crouch, Pennant and even Benny maynot have been bought. The fact is that we cannot put all eggs in one basket and buy just 1 big player and hope he comes good, which is the reason why he had to buy a number of players. Cast your mind back to the squad we had in 2004. If he just bought one excellent player, do you think we would have been a great team?? It's a simple concept that most people will understand but for some reason, you don't seem to get??? Are you playing a joke on us? It's not April fools is it?
Yes Alonso cost us (excluding wages) -20m, Rafa has a real eye for talent.
ReplyDeleteThe amount he spent was 10.5 but he got sold for 30 so thanks to Rafas good business he made us 20 mil. Why is that so hard to understand?
I think if you would talk to anyone who works in finance or has to deal with finance would tell you the same. Net is the most important figure, this my friend, is a fact.
'Net spend is what people cling to as some kind of evidence that a manager is good in the transfer market'
ReplyDeleteCan i just say i didnt think this article was about how well RB has done in the transfer market. I dont cling to it like that, i see it as a sign of how well he has been backed and the answer is compared to the others tomorrow. Although i know spending doesnt guarentee success, but we are not on a level playing field to Man Utd and Chelsea and accoding to those wage figures, arsenal aswel.
Wages are also important because thats part of the budget of a club.
Bolton for a long time(alardyce era) didnt spend alot on transfers but they had players like Djorkaeff, Campo, Hiero and Okotcha on massive contracts which was the reason they didnt have much money. My dads actually mates with Big Sam thats how i know this to be fact.
So wages do have a massive impact. So should not be discounted.
please for me would you include tottenham over the same period of time. They did sell berbs and keane for alot so might be in some way similar to ours.
totally agree with you.. why look at actual spend when he wasn't given all that money to spend it in the first place. I never hear anyone rank how good a company is by how much the company actually have spent? It's always about profit right?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to Jaimie I don't think anywhere in the article does it say that the average net spend of 19.1 mill a year is a extremely large figure as far as a top four team's transfer budget goes.
ReplyDeletePersonally think it's a very interesting article which I think actually proves that (preceding this dismal season so far) Benitez has actually done very well on the budget he's had. When he took over it's pretty fair to say he inherited a fair bit of deadwood that needed replacing, and he's basically completely overhauled the squad on 20 mil a year, which I think is pretty impressive despite us being as shit as we have this season so far. Basically he's changed the squad for the price of about five of chelsea's or man city's players (who often find themselves on their respective benches).
If this had been done before the season started then Benitez would be hailed as a genius. As it happens he's slipped down a fiar bit due to us being shit, but even still if we turn it round and make it to the top four which I still believe is very realistic with how open this season has been I think it's still a pretty impressive return.
Finally while it's gonna be interesting to see what the other top four clubs net spend has been I personally don't think it's relevant to compare any club with any other in this way, because there's such amazing differences in the positions that each club were in five years ago.
Just my two cents anyway.
Good article tho jaimie
FAO Nickname - that post was deletewd because it contravene the comment policy (Link on the right of the page).
ReplyDeleteIf you - or anyone else - posts anything else that includes derogator/snide comments, or expresses views that they don't like this site, you will be banned.
Stick to debating the issues raised. If you don't like this site, don't visit! I can't be bothered to wade through loads of posts moaning about this site. They will be deleted. It's as simple as that. Any anyone who doesn't like it, tough luck. Go elsewhere. Anyone who wants to debate football issues is welcome to continue posting.
looks like some of my posts are being deleted as well. Oh dear again!
ReplyDelete<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q:</span></span></span>
ReplyDelete<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "> </span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An nauseating as it may be, if you were to put yourself in the mindset of Jamie and categorise where you stand as a Liverpool fan, would you be in the ‘Rafa apologist Brigade’ as Jamie affectingly calls fans who look to rationalise what our manager is doing and why he is doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or would you be in the ‘anti Rafa’ camp like Jamie and look to blame every problem going on the manager.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly we know it is difficult to say you are solely 1 or the other but if we assume that the majority of Rafa apologists would like Rafa to stay on as manager and the majority of anti Rafa fans would want him to leave asap, then you know which one you would fall under.</span></span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "> </span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would personally come under the Rafa apologist category I suppose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, my Q is this, do any of you other Rafa supporters think that although Rafa is the man you want at the helm and the man capable of bringing sucess in the future, that maybe if results/performances don’t improve over the next 2/3 weeks then maybe a change is needed in manager simply to solve the current crisis in the short-term and give the team the best chance possible of salvaging something (top 4, a trophy) this season? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "> </span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think Pompey (a) next sat live on Sky is a massive match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bad result there in front of the watching media will be a disaster I think and even though I have been adamant in my support for Rafa, I would maybe start to consider the possibility that he is not the man to get us out of the trouble we are clearly in at the moment.</span></span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; "> </span></span>
<p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Any thoughts?</span></span></span>
Why don't you reveal who your source is?? Didn't think you had one.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your obsession with all this, do you hate Benitez that much that you have to try and put him down at every given opportunity?
Although others maybe blind to see it I like the way you attempt to disguise all this by showing comparisons with past managers and other clubs to show that you have no agenda here, which we can see you clearly have.
You have no idea what Rafa has spent and you are going on guess work pure and simple.
Hi Jamie I enjoyed the article and this debate but I think it is unfair to include The 20 million for contract extensions in Rafas figures as your whole article is based on reported figures while the 20 million is not. At the intro to your article Christian Purslow did say it was around 20 million but as there is no documented proof this really should be included in this seasons figures when they are published. As far as we know the profit we have made on transfers this season may have payed for the extensions
ReplyDeleteJust thought a simple way to prove that actual spend does not tell a story. If I was a manager, came into a new club. Sold all the players for 150m and then spent that 150m on buying new players. My actual spend is 150m as I have gone out and spent 150m. Does that make me a bad manager? Or does it tell me that the board has backed me or does it mean that I have had a lot of money to spend? The answer is NO. cos I haven't spent anything and I have just replaced the squad with new ones.. Get it?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if everything is on actual spend then doesn't it skew the data if there were a swap deal involved? What if all transfers Rafa have done are swap deals? Does that make him an amazing manager as net spend is zero?? Do you now see how much this actual spend number tells us? Absoultely nothing! I'm not a rafa backer but just pointing out this argument is very silly and invaild!
Hey there - Thanks for pointing that out. I have only provided the figures - there is no discussion of them in the article. I have not passed judgment. Everyone else has turend this into an anti-Benitez issue. That says alot about their insecurity over the figures.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the Gerard Houllier net spend thread BEFORE this was posted, I said that Benitez's net spend was 'not that bad'!
This is not an issue of net spend. If and when I comment on these figures, it will be purely to do with how the 292m has been spent.
The post i was refering to was a very good post full of football discusion, it just didn't match up to your mind set. (btw, it wasn't my post)
ReplyDeleteI love talking football and i love a good argument, even though i think you are very wrong, i still respect your opinion. Would i be wrong in saying you are just as biased as the Rafa-ites, the only difference being you want him out.
Right now i am very nutral, we are going through a bad spell and something has to give, be it the manager or ownership or players but we need to turn this around. What i can't stand are false stats brought up to bash Rafa.
In my opinion, you could argue about teams picked, substitutions even players bought, but not on the amount of money he has spent. In this fact i will back Rafa
Am sorry but people keep saying that Rafa inherited a poor squad. How can that be? The 2005 champs league winners consisted of Houliers squad other than Alonso and Garcia.
ReplyDeleteWe would kill to have a younger Sami back and id take Risse over any of our 3 left backs. Didi wasnt bad and we had some decent strikers. Also he sold Danny Murphy who I would take back. Finally how can someone inherit a poor squad when it has Stevie and Carra in the team?
Dont forget Houliers team finished 2nd in 2002 behind the invinsibles. Rafa had a good squad that was in the champions league before he started and judging by this season we are no different to when he took over in 2005.
Oh my god. I don't beleve what I'm seeing! You juust blindly trust transferleague.com as if that is absolute, and you ignore the FACTUAL INFORMATON that comes direct from the clu's accounts?!
ReplyDeleteAmazing!
The figures from that site are coimpletely inaccurate. No wonder so many fans are woefully misinformed. Like you, they're willing to believe the flimsiest sources.
Hilarious.
on the second part, I meant if everything was done on swaps then the ACTUAL spend is zero (didn't mean to put net)
ReplyDelete*shoots self. Again*
ReplyDeleteMind-boggling! You just blindly trust transferleague.com as if that is absolute, and you ignore the FACTUAL INFORMATON that comes direct from the club's accounts?!
Amazing!
The figures from that site are completely inaccurate. No wonder so many fans are woefully misinformed. Like you, they're willing to believe the flimsiest sources.
I really do despair of some 'fans'. You just accept anything you come across without *thinking* about things logically.
Hes spent 2mill but never had 2 mill to begin with. He had 1 mill then sold it for 1m, so he could then use that to buy a 1 mill home, to suggest he now has 2 homes is wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhen slating a comment you always say its ok aslong as you back up your point, he has tried to explain yet all your doing Jaimie is slagging it off and not backing up your point unless saying someone is sooo in love with benitez is backing up your point.
Getting annoyed by you Jaimie you slag off those who arnt even proclaiming to love benitez and yet your just at the oposite end of the scale. Ill start my own new group, RCDNR
prove the figures for villa are wrong!!!
ReplyDeletesince o'neill took charge
go on
lets compare your beloved o'neill's net spend against rafas since oneill went to villa
by the way tansfer leagues figure is only 5m less than yoursfor that period
ReplyDeletethey say oneill has spent 22m more than rafa that period
Funny how we are told not to trust one websites numbers but you ask us to trust yours. I don't know you from Adam, give me your source and maybe i could trust it.
ReplyDeleteYour whole artical gives a very negative spin on Rafa, my only problem with this is i believe you are using the wrong numbers to bash him, by wrong numbers i mean actually spend vs net spend, i do not doubt your accounting numbers as to do so is irrelavant.
yet again an sxcuse to batter rafa with why not look at the money rafas generated himself with the champions money . his net spend woul be a lot lower but you wont do that because it will look good for rafa.most of the players rafas resold have been at a profit.this is the first time ive known us use transfer money for contracts.you cant compare chelsea man utd arsenal just over the last 5 years because theve had longer to build up thier squads up so didnt need to spend so much.
ReplyDeleteA swap deal is never just a swap deal - there is still money involved (various costs etc) That is just a label, and that is how it is reported because it is simpler than explaining the complexity of the how the transfer actually went down.
ReplyDeleteAnd all these costs/conplexities are included in the club's accounts and lumped togther as a single figure.
You can keep trying to justify the net spend argument till the cows come home by any fair-minded persin unencumbered by bias towards Benitez can see that actual spend is most important.
Example:
In Benitez's year, his actual spend was 46m. So - when he was going choosing what players to buy with that money, what was the deciding factor? The ACTUAL money he had to spend, or the net spend figure (which didn't even exist for him then because he's sold no one!).
The point is when Benitez goes into the transfer market with money to spend, he does this in isolation. If The club say 'Right - you have 30m to spend this summer' then that is that. it is absolute. That figure exists in siolation. benitez then goes and spend THAT money. it has nothing to do with money he might recoup in the future. In the moment, he has 30m and that is what he is going to spend.
Now, HOW he spends that 30m is what matters. And the same principle applies every time he has money to spend. Who he buys with it is what is important.
Later, if player's don't work out he can sell them. but that doesn't change the fact that AT THE TIME, he spent a specifric amount of money on that player/players.
Liverpool spent 20m on Keane. That 20m could'[ve been spent on anyone, but it was spent on Keane. The signing was a failure, so Liverpool sold him for 12m (initially). That does not mean we bought him ORIGINALLY for 12m!! The original purchase price still remains 20m. That period of history where the 20m was paid STILL EXISTS! It doesn't just vanish because we recouped money on him.
Again, the issue is how EFFECTIVELY was the money spent in the first place.
If the money for Keane was spent better, net spend wouldn't be an issue because the player wouldn't have been sold! That would make the use of the money worthwhile. The use of the Keane money was NOT worthwhile - it was 20m wasted, 20m that COULD have been spend on an effective player.
The same goes for the whole actual spend. How effectively that money has been spent IN THE FIRST INSTANCE is the most important thing. Was it spend wisely?
Was Dossena (8m) a wise purchase?
Was Babel (11m) a wise purchase?
That's 19m that COULD have been spent more effectively, and if it was, the team would have benefited more.
Instead, the team has barely benefited from both players, which means the original ACTUAL spend leaves a lot to be desired.
I do not slag off people - calling the 'pro-rafa is not slagging them off. How can it be? it doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteI've explained the same points over and over - I'm not going to repeat myself over and over any longer.
You and your fellow pro-Rafa fans have completely missed the point: At no point in the article do I make any judgment or comment about Benitez's spending. Instead of looking at the figures objectively, you have just treid to turn this into another ant-Rafa thing.
I have just highlighted the figures, nothing else.
And if you're getting annoyed thendon't come to this site. Go to TAI or RAWK.
You've mentioned 6 players from houllier's era there, how exactly does that equate to a good squad? Squad is the important word here not first team. If you inherited Stevie and Jamie C plus the rest of the darlington squad (no offence to darlington intented) would the manager then be expected to challenge for honours off the back of two decent players???
ReplyDeleteWhat happened in the champions league in 2005 was nothing short of miraculous with the squad then. Whether it was down to benitez or the players just playing out of their skins in that competition that season is anyone's guess, but although it's amazing it happened, there's no way anyone can say with a straight face that on paper we were a good enough team to win that competition that year. With due respect to everyone's amazing efforts connected with the club that year in the competition, we should probs have been knocked first or second round.
As for the debate on who's squad, houllier's in 2004/5 or benitez's now is best, that's a completely different issue, as is whether benitez has spent badly or brilliantly in replacing Houllier's squad. However there should be absolutely no debate that the squad in 2005 did need a complete overhaul. Sorry but anyone who has any footballing knowledge and half decent memory would agree
You raised the issue - it's up to you to prove OI'Neill's figures are RIGHT. You've just used some dodgy website that has a reputation for inaccuracy (and is apparently run by Mancs); do proper research; look at the reports befor proclaiming something to be absolute.
ReplyDeleteRedboy - as soon as you stop including inaccurate commentary on me and start just focusing on the issues then your comments will be published. Once again, read the comment policy: Attack the argument, not the person. All comments that attack the person are deleted. This forces people to focus on attacking the argument. if you want a free for all, go to TIA or RAWK or some other LFC forum.
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable!
ReplyDelete1. Where have I asked anyone to trust me or my article? Stop making things up!! I just put the information out there - people will make up their own minds.
2. How does the article provide a 'very negative spin' on rafa?! This is aprime example of where your blinf faith in him affects your judgment. LOOK at the article. Pleas epost the text that puts him in a bad light.
There is not commentary in the article! It is only figures and background notes. So what are you on about exactly?!
I did no turn this into an examination of Benitez's spending. YOU and your fellow RCDNW brigade members did that. You're projecting the negative thing on this article because you have major insecurity over the figures. You know deep inside that 292m is a lot of money, and our sqiuad should be better than it is now, but you try and get over that by making illogical disinctions and trying to detract from the central issue.
3. The numbers are not wrong. THEY ARE FACT! They come from the club's own reports.
The only opinion part here is my view that gross spend is important, but as I said earlier I DID NOT INCLUDE THAT OPINION IN THE ARTICLE ITSELF.
This really is the twilight zone.
did your source at LFC tell you all of the above on how the budget is set and managed? what about swap deals?
ReplyDeletealso, which accounting firm did you use to verify your numbers?
doesnt matter what rafa has spent either way he has had money to spend and done nothing with it i think 5 years is enough time to make something out of us yet we have won what 2 cups in 5 years for liverpool fcs recoed thats poor he just hasnt done n e thing with the money he has been given. he signs people like dossena for 7mil babel for 10mil wjhats the point they have done nothing especially dossena if rafa spent his money more wisely we would be a much better liverpool team than we r now and wouldnt be in the position we r i mean im certain we could have got much better players for the money than benitez has signed.
ReplyDeleteok jamie, i do understand you point regarding actual spending i really do. so do you wnat to go through each transaction and say whether it was money well spent or not? that is very easy to do with hindsight.
ReplyDeletePersonally i think that £20m on Keane was a good signing at the time. Clearly it didn't work out that way and perhaps a little over-priced for his age, but to spend £20m on a British striker with a proven PL pedigree and a Liverpool fan was exactly what we needed at the time. Obv it didn't work it i know that, butt hat's easy to say now. I thought at the time it was great news and the though of Keane and Torres in tandom did (and still does to a large extent) excite me.
Dossenna for £8m. Again, not worked out but £8m for Italy'y first choice full-back was not a ludicrous signing. I'l be honest, i hadn't see him before we signed hima nd i do wonder at times what he saww, but at the end of the day, did a lot more research on him than you and i.
Babel - Having seen him play many times before, including the U21 the Summer we signed him, £11m was a great buy. Again, not fulfilled potential but a good buy at the time without a doubt.
crouch - I was gutted when we signed him for £7m on the bacjk of winning the CL. But what a fool i was. Having watched him week in week out for a couple of years i was able to appreciate what a fine player he was. I wish we had him back to be honest.
The point im making is that in each of those decisons, Rafa made the signing expecting the players to be a success. It's never a certainty and i didn;'t even want Torres when we signed him tbh. so to pick out his flops and say it's a waste of money if relly unfair i think.
Before each transfer window i always have the same thought. I just want rafa to address the areas of the team i think need addressing. Specific players are donw to him because he will meet the players and know which ones are iright for him and the club withouth us knowing. To this end, i was disappointed this summer when our striking options were not addressed. Clearly we needed another CF and the fact he didn't sign was certainly a mistake on his part, one i hope he will rectify in January!
sure having money helps but in my opinion its what u do with that money that coounts the most u could have all the money in the world and buy crap with it or u could have small amounts of money and spend well with it for example aston villa and tottenham they dont have as much money as other clubs yet they are both in higher positions than us because they have spent their money better than we have
ReplyDeleteI feel really tired.
ReplyDeleteThese gross/net spend figures are pubblished by Jamie in order to establish how Rafa spent money during his years in charge and so starting a debate.
I have no interest in Spurs, Manure, Chelsea, VIlla ecc.
My only interest is Liverpool FC, and certainly I firmly will to know better the net spend of the club.
How can it be guesswork when I am using actual figures from the club accounts? Perhaps you should THINK before you post.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think's it's obvious why I don't reveal my source - it';s the same reasons thousands of other journalists don't reveal their sources! If I did, that person would no longer be my source. This is obvious.
Swap deals are never just swap deals though - that's just what we get told. There is always money involved somewhere, and that money is included in the gross transfer spend. Deloitte confirm this - the alink is in the article.
ReplyDeleteAnd I didn't use a firm - I used an individual who specialises in sports accounting. Plus, one of my sources at the club perused the figures and gave them the thumbs up.
At the end of the day, it's all semantics really - no matter what labels you use for the figures, the figures themselves (including the net/gross spend total figures) are correct.
You're right, Bommer - whatever way we analyse the data it is never going to be scientific. It's not possible anyway because the individual figures and how they costs etc are brooken down are not available.
ReplyDeleteIf the relevant data was available it would be different, but we have to work with what we have (and what people behind the scenes are willing to divulge!)
For me, it is prefereable to use figures from club accounts than rely on net spend figures calculated by just compiling a list of player values from 100 different (inaccurate) sources and adding them all up.
why are you all so interested in the other big four clubs ? this is about lfc,and what rafa has spent...our club,our money,our squad and our lack of quality,depth of squad and belief in what rafa has had to work with and how well he has done ? im not arsed in the slightest what other teams have done while were trying to catch up to birmingham....Y N W A
ReplyDeleteI agree with 'The Guest' rafa has done brilliantly with the resources he has had. To have to replace players from the whole squad and not just the first team shows his forward thinking and will obviusly mean sacrifices to the amount of money spent on the first team players - but it had to be done. He has had to make some difficult decisions especially as his first choice transfer targets could not or would not be funded.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it an 'obvious disadvantage' for Rafa? Please qualify that statement? The evidence that wages are not an accurate indicator of success comes from the results themselves:
ReplyDeleteHow can United win the title 3 years in a row with a lower wage bill than Chelsea?
How can Arsenal win the title 3 times with a lower wage bill than bother Chelsea and United?
How can Liverpool come second in the legue (under both Houllier and Benitez) with significantly lower wage bills than United and Chelsea?!
it doesn't compute.
If you theory was correct, Liverpool would never finish above Chelsea/United. Liverpool would not win the CL either - how could they when their wage bill is lower than Milan?!
Wages is an intersting thing to look at but in no way is there an absolute correlation between wages and ability to win the league/trophies.
so rafa is the worst spending manager of the top 4, is what you seam to want to prove. so we get rid of rafa.
ReplyDeleteso all i would like you to do is name a manager who has spent less, equaled rafa's record in games won, or points achieved or trophies. because they should be in the frame for the job if rafa leaves,sacked or what ever.
now that would be more interesting. then the fans could see the record of rafa against those who are available to take over. that would prove if we have the best we can get for the cash.
Matt - where do you get this stuff from?! Please show me the section in the article where I made any reference to Rafa being the worst spending manager in the top 4?! I didn't say anything about him at all in the article - I just stated the figures.
ReplyDeleteIt's not me who has turned this into an anti-Rafa thing. I just posted the figures, that's it.
rafa has bought mostly crap though a few have done ok not brilliant but done ok and then there are the few have have done well
ReplyDeleteRafa cannot be compared to the top 4 over the last 5 years as both Arsen Wenger and Fugus face have spent years building their expensive squads. All Chelsea managers over that period have walked into a club with a squad already built and / or with lots of money to spend. Rafa is still building an entire squad and not just adding a few expensive first team players!
ReplyDeleteReally nice analysis, Jaimie. I've seen somewhat different figures, but suspect those were media-sourced, so yours are implicitly better (directly from the source). Question --> I'm not an accountant, but are players fees the only 'Intangible Fixed Assets' on the balance sheet or can other items fall into that category (wonder if we're commingling somethings).
ReplyDeleteI would say to your first point, that as what you're looking at is these 'Intangible Fixed Assets', it doesn't make sense to include these in your analysis. They wouldn't hit this line in the financial statements, so why include them? I understand that Purslow has said that Rafa's transfer budget was reduced to pay for wage increases, but that's just a budgeting item, not an accounting item, which you treat above.
In any event, similar analysis shows that Rafa has spent somewhere between £16.6mm & £19.1mm a year. Do you think that's a lot? Given his success in the Champions League, do you think he has some claim on the extra revenue generated in terms of returning the monies back into transfer budget?
Looking forward to the compares. Would be interested in seeing Tottenham & Villa's numbers, but understand that this is a lot of work, so up to you.
Cheers,
Dave
Ok I'll attack the argument, politely, and discard my issues with your particular form of analysis.
ReplyDeleteHow can figures for this article include the money spent on extending player contracts last summer, but not for the four summers before?
Is this Jaimie really called Duncan and supports Newcastle?
ReplyDeleteCan we mention the fact that the rules have changes regarding home grown players. We sell alvaro arbeloa to real Madrid for 3ish million and replace him with glen Johnson for 20 million because that is the going rate for English players that we need to fill our team up with. Rafa has done wonders with the acadamy and in a few years players who don't make the grade will move on at a profit. Things ferguson and wenger have done for years.
ReplyDeleteJaimie I think your argument about "actual spend" is hamstrung by the fact that Benitez did not have 292 million to spend all at once - it was across several transfer windows. Thus, as others have contended, the assumption that he has "wasted" all this money is fallacious, because he has had to buy 2nd or 3rd choice players, upgrade them, sell to buy better players etc.
ReplyDeleteWhich is precisely why those whom you deride as "Rafa apologists" continue to use net spend as their justification - it is the only viable indicator because it acknowledges the inflows AND outflows over a number of time periods. Your argument suggests that Rafa's spending is isolated from his selling - woefully misguided.
However, as is usually the case with you, I suppose that is the "Nature of the Beast" ;)
In other words anything anyone has to say that goes against your agenda is just an 'excuse'. Sorry pal i refuse to play your game. Fact is, in the 5 seasons Rafa's been here we've finished above Arsenal 3 times and have come closer to winning the league than any other time since 1990. Now we're having a bad season where nothing's going right and people like you just want to pick holes in everything and make everything seem more sinister than it really is. It's ultimately pointless and you know it as nobody really takes on board what you say.
ReplyDeleteGoing on your assumption that we had 20mil net to spend each season, that's still a bit shit compared to Chelski, Manure, Spurs and even Sunderland.
ReplyDeletei appreciate you getting these figures jamie i do give him credit in selling alonso to get more money and the same will happen with mascherano who i think will goto barca and we know if we dont get into the top 4 and torres asks for a transfer we will make money on him too but his defensive play may have cost us 20 mill at the end of the season not getting into top 4
ReplyDeleteWhat possible difference does it make if he didn't have 292m from the start? The same applies to every team - no manager has a lump sump straight away. This is a distinction that has no merit whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are also making a major assumption that Benitez bought '2nd and 3rd choice players'. Was Alonso his second choice? Torres? Aquilani? Agger? Etc. How do we know? Becasue the media says so? And what difference does it make anyway? Are you suggesting that every team other than Liverpool always gets their first choices?! Of course they dont.
Benitez's spending IS isolated from his selling. At some point, someone will come to benitez and say 'You have X to spend'. At that point, the buying process becomes isolated from selling because at that point, sales have no bearing on WHO Benitez buys. It's down to his personal judgement: what do I do with the money I have? Who do I buy?
Everything else you and others are arguing has no bearing on WHO he buys and the quality of player he buys. He chooses them; he has to stand or fall by those decisions.
Just because Benitez received the 292m over 5 years doesn't change the fact that this amount was spent on players!
No one is denying that net spend is viable indicator if ins and out, but that's not the issue. Net spend is NOT a viable indiactor how EFFECTIVE a manager is in the transfer market.
That contention is just sheer unadulterated nonsense.
The quality and impact of the players bought versus their original cost is the way to judge if someone's transfer policy is effective. Otherwise we could argue that El Hadji Diouf was a good signing. Well, he must have been - he cost 10m and we sold him for 3.5m! The net spend was 6.5m, which is less than what we paid! Hurrah! Success!
You cannot ignore the fact that we paid 10m for Diouf. Compare that outlay with his impact and that is how to judge if his signing was effective or not.
It was a waste of 10m. If we'd bought *another* player for 10m instead of him, soimeone who contributed, then there would've been no reason to sell him, and the net spend issue would be moot anyway.
Net spend is the biggest and most ridiculous fallacy in football. The way people latch onto it to defend managers is laughable; and the only reason they do it is because net spend is a smaller figure than gross spend, so it looks better.
Jamie
ReplyDeleteI think finally you are on the right lines with your appraisals. However, to offer a fair comparison and not be seen as just Rafa bashing which is how you always come across then I suggest the following
1.look at a period of 10 years
2.Compare the 'Big 4' (I would also suggest the inclusion of Tottenham)
3. Include ALL Player costs and not just Transfers and signing fees etc. (This makes it look like you are cherry picking information to argue your point).
THerefore include, the following
Total Agent Fees
Total Player Salaries
Total Signing on Fees
Total Purchasing Transfer Fees (Total, not staged payments and not include payment on potential performance)
Total Incoming Transfer Fees.
And then compare this information Club by Club. Unless you do something like this then you arguments will be relatively toothless and pointless.
Jaime, when writing articles as you do the job is to thoroughly research and provide a discussion of ALL the information. This would include comparing against other teams and previous managers as otherwise you have no point of reference or bench mark to say whether or not something is more or less.
I don't know what Benitez's net spend is nor am I that interested to be honest. It doesn't change where we are in the league or help the situation we are in. Arguing about it just creates rifts between our own fans for no good reason.
I am not a member of the "pro rafa brigade" as you constantly call then but he is still the best manager we have had for a long time. The squad we have IS capable of competing for all the top honors as it has proved. This year has been one to forget for sure but it is not yet over and constant bashing of the manager and the team trying to discredit them does not help especially when it comes from our own supporters.
Liverpool FC is club that has always stuck together and should continue to do so.
I feel that you constantly creatively find things to write about and generally they are critical and many times they are about the manager.
Peace out mo fo.
2 managers spend 100 million in the transfer window. One of them recoups 50 million in sales, the other has to let his players go on Bosmans. Which is the better manager in the transfer market?
ReplyDeleteThe manager who recoups money in sales is better in the transfer market as he has recouped money in sales. He is better because his NET SPEND is 50 million less.
NET SPEND is the figure that should be used, ask the chairmen!
Jamie, I admire your dedication to providing catalysts for debate. Especially that you will produce the comparable net spends of the other three teams tomorrow. This will be a nightmare given that you have chosen to include contract extentions. I'm sure Ronaldo had a few of them.
Also, as there are clearly 11 transfer windows, you could have divided the figures by 5 and a half at least.
I have to admit I have defended LFC spending down the pub with others and these stats only help. The figures for wages posted in the thread are also interesting and very relevant (again, ask the chairmen).
This is another reason why net spend is a fallacy. If Benitez had not sold cetain players (Alonso for example), the net spend would be higher:
ReplyDeleteExample:
* Current money recouped: 196.4
* Take off Alonso: 166.4
New net spend total 125.8
Average per year: 25.5m
See. The net spend rises to 25M - would you then be saying it's crap?
Jeez...
ReplyDeleteThe measure of whether a manager is good in the transfer market is not about how much money they recoup, it is about how effective the players they buy are, and how much of a positive impact said players make.
What is the primary purpose of transfers? Is it to make money, or is to imporve the team and improve the chances of success (in the form of trophies).
Clearly, it is to improve the team and increase success, which is why - again - your approach is dubious at best.
And look at Arsene Wenger - every year since he's been at Arsenal, his net spend has been small compared to man U, Liverpool, Arsenal etc. Why? Because he has a knacxk of buying cheap and selling big. However, his net spend is still low; does this make him a bad manager, or a worse manager than Ferguson/Houllier/Benitez?
Despite the small net spend, Wenger still won the league three times, which negates your point about whoever has the biggest net spend 'is the best'.
The club does not signing-on fees, salaries etc when it calculates the inc,ing/outgoing transfer fees, so why should I?! Do you not get that I am merely highlighting the club's own figures?! Why should I embellish them and make the inaccurate just because you and others don't like what they tell us?!
ReplyDeleteAll club's account for transfers in the same way. If it's good enough for the clubs (!) it's good enough for me . It amazes me that I even have to explain this point.
The measure of whether a manager is good in the transfer market is not about how much money they recoup, it is about how effective the players they buy are, and how much of a positive impact said players make.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the primary purpose of transfers? Is it to make money, or is to imporve the team and improve the chances of success (in the form of trophies).
Clearly, it is to improve the team and increase success, which is why - again - your approach is dubious at best.
And look at Arsene Wenger - every year since he's been at Arsenal, his net spend has been small compared to man U, Liverpool, Arsenal etc. Why? Because he has a knacxk of buying cheap and selling big. However, his net spend is still low; does this make him a bad manager, or a worse manager than Ferguson/Houllier/Benitez?
Despite the small net spend, Wenger still won the league three times, which negates your point about whoever has the biggest net spend 'is the best'.
The club does not include signing-on fees, salaries etc when it calculates the incoming/outgoing transfer fees, so why should I?! Do you not get that I am merely highlighting the club's own figures?! Why should I embellish them and make the inaccurate just because you and others don't like what they tell us?!
ReplyDeleteAll club's account for transfers in the same way. If it's good enough for the clubs (!) it's good enough for me . It amazes me that I even have to explain this point.
Once again you miss the point. The point is we have to sell to buy.
ReplyDeleteeg.
Sissosko - Mascherano
Crouch - Keane
Bellamy - Torres
Alonso - Aquilani
Just to name a few. Man U and Chealsea try to avoid this policy.
That is why they have strong Squads.
Jamie can you peruse from your source, the interest payments,bank charges and expenses of our lovely owners since they took over two years ago. Try not to miss anything out.
Sowellred - I have not chosen to include contract extensions. This is a special case. Money for contract extensions is accounted for in a different part of the annual report. In Liverpool's case, money which was specifically budgeted for transfers has been used for contract extensions. Do you not se the difference? If this happens, there will be an explanatory note in the financial report. There are no such notes in any of the reports I've seen for Chelsea etc, which means no TRANSFER BUDGET has been used for contract extensions.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go through this one more time:
1. The club budgets for contract extensions, and that budget is NOT part of the transfer budget.
2. However, on this occasion, the contract extension budget BECAME part of the overall transfer budget. <span>... <span></span></span><span>
Why? There was (and is) a schedule in place for renewing contracts. This timeframe is stipulated the playerss existing contract. The club budgets according to that contracted timeframe.
In this situation, Benitez did not want to wait for the contracted timeframe to kick into place. He wanted to the contracts sorted out earlier. The club obviously hadn't budgeted for renewing contracts earlier, but Benitez insisted. He was told that the only way to do this was to use money budgeted for transfers. he could've used the money to buy new players, and wait for the contracts to be renewed....
Benitez chose to use the money to renew, thus it is legitimately part of the transfer spend. And since it becamse part of the transfer budget, it will be accounted as part of the transfer budget.
Example.
* Liverpool sign player A on a 5 year contract.
* Player A's contract states that at the start of the 4th year the contract is eligible for renewal.
* The club therefore budgets for a potential contract extension for 4 years down line
* After 3 years, the manager is so pleased with player A, he wants to extend his contract earlier.
* What money can be used to extend the contract at this point? The club has not budgeted for an earlier extension.
* If there is spare money lying about, then it's not a problem. In this case, the Board tells the Manager that there is no money to extend player A's contract BUT there is a transfer budget available for new players.
* The manager suggests that the transfer budget be used for player A's contract.
*The board agrees.
* Thus, the extension of the player's contract becomes part of the club's gross spend on transfers for that season.
This is *exactly* what happened at Liverpool this summer.
Money that was earmarked for transfers was used on contract extensions instead.
This is an exceptional situation - not every club does this.
</span>
This is such a cliche.
ReplyDeletePROVE that we had to sell to buy.
How do you know we had to sell Sissoko to buy Masch? It doesn't make sense anyway since Masch cost 18.6m in total and Sissoko left for almost 1/4 of that.
What you're arguing is pure supposition based on nothing more than fan speculation.
Who did we have to sell to buy Torres? Josemi?! Luis Garcia?!
ReplyDeleteHold on Jamie your article includes the £20m that purslow said was spent on extending contracts and you later argue about signing on fees being included when questioned about swap deals stating
ReplyDelete"swap deals are never just swap deals, there is always money included".
What you consistently do is use information to suit your view point. Thats all youve ever done.
To give an accurate appraisal of any situation your have to include all the "facts" and present them from an unbiased perspective. You always fail to do this.
If you will let me I will research all this information and collate it for you and write an article giving a balanced argument in an attempt to find the EXCLUSIVE and honest answer.
As I said, I am not part of the "pro rafa brigade". I am a realist so it makes no odds to me the result. But at least the analysis would be done properly.
Come on Jaime, you contradict yourself all through your arguments all the time.
How can you include that £20m for contract extension but not include wages. What do you suggest the money was used for? You reckon we paid 5 players £20 to extend contracts between them?!
Your living in cloud cookoo land pal!!
Ha Ha Ha
Nuts.
Do you want me to do an article for you?! It will take time as I have other commitments. Feel free to email me at your convenience......
No, the top 4 manager with the smallest net spend is the most successful in the transfer market. (staying in the champions league is the success that is comparably equal for these clubs)
ReplyDeleteNo-one would argue about Wenger being the best in the transfer market.........would they?
In fact Arsenal fans wish that he'd increase his net spend!!
Mark - your post was deleted because:
ReplyDeletea) You included derogatory comments
b) I'm sick of your posts - the sniping; the misrepresentation and twisting of my arguments.
re your points - here's a suggestiong: READ properly; interpret the information properly; THINK, then write.
That 20 mill makes all the difference! Nice one Jamie
ReplyDelete...icles :-D
ReplyDeleteYet you choose to ridicule any other Journalists figures such as Tony Barratt in the Times.....he must have his reliable sources too my friend!
ReplyDeleteDNT PLAY THE INNOCENT jAMIE! you posted it for exactly this reaction when all LFC fans need to stick together and get behind the manager! I do like your site so will not blame you for encouraging more hits but please lets be positive! Manure Fans that wanted Fergie out proved to be twats !
ReplyDeleteThis is a very valid point Jaimie...
ReplyDeletenot having a go but have you ever done an article praising rafa's work or liverpool's work in general?
ReplyDeleteif we wernt a club who had to sell to buy then why havent we got a squad which is worth more $$$ smart arse? its not fan speculation is the obvious. been tryin to understand your angle on the club for months...cant see anything positive from your posts so 1 question... are you a manc?
ReplyDeleteI have answered that question already - I don't have the time or the energy to repeat myself or trawl through thread to find what I wrote.
ReplyDeleteYou are a joke, you're just trying to wind everyone up and get hits on your site, surely!
ReplyDeleteGreat post
ReplyDeleteJamie should take note. I consider myself to be a Rafa Apologist but first and formost an avid LFC Fan or supporter if you will. ( JK look the word up in a dictionary)
I am still a massive Rafa fan however I now find myself qualifying the support i give him. I have said since the onset of our current problems lets get to Jan 1 10 and see where we are. Tonights game and the 2 following fixtures have got to produce max points. So 3 in the bag another 6 to go. If we dont get the points and things get worse by 01/01/10 then we should consider the options and I am sure the club will. It will be a great shame for many supporters and for Rafa but he could still walk away with a Legend badge on his back. Big problem would be who next, for me no obvious choice as a successor more defo nots than maybes and if anyone mentions oneill with the job, christ give me a break, in all his managerial years he has won nothing of note if you forget the celtic post and anyone could win the SPL.
I hope Rafa pulls it round, gets a good run with his star players in tandem and qualifies for europe.
Mate, when you compare to the other teams, how will you account for the contract extensions? Where does the cost of Ballack fit in to the chelsea budget? Also, will it include the management contracts? both chelsea and spurs have had massive expenses related to changing their managers?
ReplyDeleteFinally, to fully paint a picture of comparison, I assume you will be comparing our transfers to the other pretenders to the top 4, Villa and Spurs?
I like the fact of using the financial reports as it adds integrity to the numbers, butnot sure about using the 20mil that the board were trying to hide this summer. Effectively, signing on fees for contract extensions would appear in the P&L as wages, and therefore by definition are not a capital expense; ie Transfer fees for purchasing an asset.
Strictly speaking, its the same as claiming electricity as a capital expense.
If you are trying to get an accurate picture of whole of life spend for a player, that would be interesting, but then comparison to other clubs would be difficult, because that information is hard to come by.
If you are trying to get accurate transfer fee picture, then you should not include contract extensions as we are the only club to add these expenses to our transfer budget.
Just noticed this post, that we chose to use the transfer budget to extend contracts earlier than planned.
ReplyDeleteBy this logic, next summer, when the club WAS planning to extend contracts for those done early, we should have an EXTRA 20mil on the transfer budget, right?
How you cannot comprehend what 99% of these posts say is beyond me. How you cannot get a grasp of the difference between gross and net spend is absolutely ridiculous. How you can include contract extensions for one year out of five is absurd. How can this be an accurate account of spending if it is not consistent from year to year. How about the contract extensions for houllier or the other top 4 clubs. how can you respond to each logical well explained post with a claim that they are rafa lovers. You have no substance to your arguments whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteHave you never considered purslows comments and inclusion of this 20 million on contract extensions on the accounts is not just a tactical move. Due to our lack of spending, we need to give the impression that we are finacially still viable for banks to extend loans and to keep investors interested. To think that 20 million was spent on contract extension bonuses on 4-5 players is plain stupid. a big propportion of that money is projected wages and CANNOT be included in the figures for spending.
oh god what drivel, endlessly on and on. why dont you all piss off?, this site now OFFICIALLY sucks. you used to have good points jamie , now its just a slag-off with all these bog-blogers about blah blah in the bloody blah blah.
ReplyDeleteHave you not considered the reasons for including these contract extensions to the accoutns for this year and this year only. It is clearly tactical. There is absolutley no way 20 million was spent on contract extension bonuses for 3-4 players. The majority if this money is the projected wages. Purslow and co. have obvioulsy done this to make it look like we are more financially secure than we really are. It hides the fact that very little money was spent this year on tranfers adn makes the banks more likely to extend loans and keeps potential investors interested. It hides the fact that most of the money being made is being eaten up by the debts created by the owners and not reinvested. If you calcualte the spend for this year alone you might find the net spend is actually a profit considering only 4 or so million was paid up front for aquilani.
ReplyDeletefuckin rubbish kanwar, sick of you and your drivel. who fuckin cares? nobody with a brain mate, get a job.
ReplyDeleteLeft for red,
ReplyDeleteOn some level I agree with you, all this split numbers and so is pure nonsense.
Here is my beef. We were so close to the title last year, and I could care less about how much money and blah, blah , blah. Any one who was watching us play knew or suspected that LFC was going to be a force to be reckoned with. United sells Ronaldo, Chelski does little, and Arsenal, well who gives a @#$$. The point is we had a team that was clicking. I couldn't wait to watch them tear up opponents. So what do we do (acutally, what does Rafa do) he alienates one of the main players are our team by shopping him around. He wants to get the world's best side passer. What the heck was Rafa thinking?? He keeps Alonso, Arbeloa, and sells Babel, Voronin, and even Lucas and gets several solid squad players to back up the core. All this quibbling over money means little given reality! We should have been leading this league with the players we had last year, but we got rid of one important one and never replaced another. All this could've, would've, should've means nothing!! We had team as of August that could have contended for the league, but now we don't and it had nothing to do with money.
This is a bit off topic Jamie (consideration for a future article), but I want to know what your take is on our Youth/Academy - policy, reasons why other teams seem to have better success at developing these youngsters. Obviously, the club has been recruiting a lot of "good" youngsters over the years from all across Europe and I've been aching to find out if and when we will ever see the next Gerrard, Carragher.
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Then, for the sake of completeness, should you not include the fees involved for contract extensions for each year they occured?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the rest of the 'big 4' clubs would have had rather large re-siging fees too.
yes but the main point is that including future expenditure under the 2008-09 season. that distorts the overall picture somewhat
ReplyDeleteIt does matter. The costs associated with the re-signings occured in the financial year of 2009-10. Thus they need to be expensed in that year.
ReplyDeleteYou can't put the expense down without the year it occured, it's plain nonsense. If a business buys a factory in the 2008-09 financial year, it reports it as being bought in 08-09, not 07-08.
The way you have reported the net spend per year, they 20mil is contributing to the 5 previous years net spends, when technically it hasn't occured yet (because you haven't included the 09-10 financial year).
A truer reflection of Rafa's net spend to this point in time would be to include 75% of both the 20mil expense and 75% of the summer transfer window. (This is difficult, but I have chosen 75% because the majority of the spending occurs in the summer. I believe this figure is being conservative. But I know many will argue that there is another transfer period and thus to use a full season is untrue)
Thus, the 20mil becomes 15mil and the total net spend (which is reduced to 90.8mil) is divided by 5.75 years rather than 5 years. Thus the more accurate net spend per year to date by Rafa is 15.8mil.
Granted this will probably increase during the January transfer period, but as of now I think this is a truer reflection. At season end the other 5mil is added back on and the total amount is divided by 6, not 5.75.
wow can someone ban you for being an officious tosser?
ReplyDeleteRafa has had 96m to spend??? Isnt the squad that he has built worth alot more than that? Net spend is bull****. Since he arrived at the club he has bought players with LFC's money. When you add up all the players that he has bought it has cost the club 292m. What do you not understand about that Nickname? And if Rafa did not get any money back from what he has spent in selling the crap that he bought, then we would be in even bigger financial trouble. What do you think that a mananger can just spend, spend and spend? Another thing, what has Benitez won with the squad that he has built, what is there to show for all the money that Rafa has spent? Thats right, he cant even win the Carling cup, but he can win the CL & Carling cup with Houlliers team??? LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry , FA Cup not the Carling Cup... 8-)
ReplyDeleteplease also look into spending of clubs like aston villa and tottenham
ReplyDeleteThat depends on IF that money is diverted into the transfer fund. It might be used for something else, or the budget may be reshaped to divert tham money elsewhere. It doesn't automaitcally mean it will become transfer money.
ReplyDeleteBob, you said "Rafa Benitez has had to completely rebuild since joining Liverpool, which is why there are only a couple of players left from the Houllier era". Are you forgetting that Benitez won the Champions League and FA Cup with Houlliers team. Why, why, why has he got nothing to show with the team that he has built??? He cant even win the Carling cup FFS! Please do not answer the question with an excuse, please provide a proper answer. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting data, good job Jaimie.
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned about one thing.
<span>"Thus, it is fair to include that 20m in Benitez's spending for 2009."</span>
Ok. Did you include former contracts extensions as well? We extended few contracts in the past.
Are you going to include contract extensions for MU/Chelsea/Arsenal players? Where are you going to get this data from?
Very interesting data Jaimie. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned about one issue:
<span>"Thus, it is fair to include that 20m in Benitez's spending for 2009."</span>
Did you include former contracts extensions as well? Like Gerrrard's in 2005? Are you going to include the cost of contracts extensions for MU/Chelsea/Arsenal in 2004-2009 period?
Where are you going to get this information from?
Jaimie, if you want your article to be taken seriously then you need to have a fairly un-biased view (which you struggle to maintain)... I think most people will agree that Rafa has not always spent his money wisely, but the same can be said for most managers. Sherry nose and the 'not so' special one have had an expensive flop or two in their time.
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