[quote author=rebel23 link=topic=33782.msg876443#msg876443 date=1243428406]
[quote author=ibromurph link=topic=33782.msg876437#msg876437 date=1243428010]
[quote author=rebel23 link=topic=33782.msg876431#msg876431 date=1243427304]
[quote author=ibromurph link=topic=33782.msg876417#msg876417 date=1243426424]
[quote author=Bradleme link=topic=33782.msg876398#msg876398 date=1243425668]
Doesn't matter what Liverpool spent, fuck that, it's gone. We could hold on to Babel and hope he gets good and if he doesn't sure he can just leave on a bosman or we could snap the arm off anybody offering £8 million. Same goes for Dossena.
Somebody fucked up when they bought these guys, it doesn't matter now, it's done. But if we can sell them on and start buying decent players at £16 million who are not the cheap alternative the team will improve.
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Somebody!? Eh? Do you mean Rafa?
People can argue about Keane not being a Rafa signing (though I think that's absolute bollocks).. but Pennant, Babel and Dossena are unquestionably his signings. Hell, he went out on a limb to get shot of one of our most loyal servants JAR for 4m, and then proceeded to purchase a player with half the talent for double the price. Rafa's done a lot of great things this year, but I firmly believe the title was won/lost in the (past) summer(s) where he made a right balls up.
11m on Babel. 7m on Pennant. 8m on Dossena. 20m on Keane.
These are/were all players on our books who contributed NOTHING (very little in Keane's case) in a season where we REALLY needed them to.
That's over 40m worth of 'talent' there (and I use that term loosely).
So when you say things like.. "sell them on and start buying decent players at £16m", I wonder who do you think is going to spend that £16m and what gives you so much hope we're going to spend it wisely? The likelihood is we'll buy shite and end up selling them on a year later for half the price.. that's EXACTLY how you turn £40m into £5m, buy high, sell low.. I hear Stuart Downing's looking for a new club. What do you reckon?
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I think it's wrong to assume a manager will make the same mistakes and doesn't learn what he needs in the transfer market, with time managers tend to improve in the transfer market as they learn from those mistakes and know better what they need
I dont think Rafa intentionally goes out and says "I'm going to buy a shit player" maybe the Dossena episode will make him trust those scouts a little less and he'll do more checking himself, or do something differently to how it was before.
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Rafa's a young manager.. and I give him great credit year for learning, for example, that the rotation policy at the start of the season does more harm than good (took him 4 years though).
But when it comes to transfers, we simply don't have the money to waste for him to continue to "learn". We are not United. With the little money we have, we have to make count. I look at the money spent by other clubs and think out of all the top sides in Premiership, we probably (behind Spurs) get the least "bang for our buck". We consistently spend 20m each year, and should at least have 4 top class attacking players by now. But instead, we've got a lot of middle-of-the-road type signings in what seems like a revolving door at Anfield. It's quite embarrassing how many shite players have come and gone. Player's who aren't/weren't ever fit to wear the shirt.
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you're talking bollocks about rotation, Fergie rotates 5/6 players every game all season and that is one of the secrets of Man Utd's success, he even rotates his entire midfield game to game.
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Err.. actually you're talking bollocks even comparing our rotation with Uniteds'. Fergie doesn't rotate Ronaldo for N'Gog.. or Rooney for Lucas.. it works for them, it doesn't work for us.. that's all that counts.. and doing it early on in the season (in the first 5-10 games) is suicidal to any title hopes FOR US.
