Transfer comments from Rafa

[aws]

But Rafa did want the flagpole.

 

When you got your wallet back,I bet you weren't stupid enough to shout out for a carpet ;-)

[Cardie]

No wonder we didn't sign anyone.

 

Rafa and Parry were sitting by the phone thinking "any minute now a clubs going to ring and give us a winger".

[Hermes]

Rafa in tonight's Echo "We were thinking about the money we'd have to spend before we signed Reina, Crouch and Sissoko. When we spent that money on Sissoko, we took advantage of a surprising opportunity we couldn't miss. We'd spent funds partly allocated for the RM and CB and that's why we sold Baros".

 

Confirmation if it was needed, that we are skint. A nett spending spree of £5m and we need to sell Baros to make the RM and CB signings.

[GJM]

Rafa in tonight's Echo "We were thinking about the money we'd have to spend before we signed Reina, Crouch and Sissoko. When we spent that money on Sissoko, we took advantage of a surprising opportunity we couldn't miss. We'd spent funds partly allocated for the RM and CB and that's why we sold Baros".

 

Confirmation if it was needed, that we are skint. A nett spending spree of £5m and we need to sell Baros to make the RM and CB signings.

 

Depends what you mean by 'skint'. We were prepared to pay £10m odd for Simao and there was still money left for a CB - albeit one deemed worthy of the outlay. If there was no expectation of signing Momo, or any central midfield player, this summer, then, by definition, in signing him we were using money which was partly (or even totally) allocated to buying other players. Don't see anything confirming we're skint in that. Although if you're working definition of 'skint' is us not being in a position to spend £25m+ on new players every transfer windown then fair enough. Not saying I agree like, but fair enough.

[GJM]

Although if you're working definition of 'skint' is us not being in a position to spend £25m+ on new players every transfer windown then fair enough. Not saying I agree like, but fair enough.

 

I meant 'your working defintion', of course, rather than 'you're'. Not that I'm neurotic or anything.

[Hermes]

Depends what you mean by 'skint'. We were prepared to pay £10m odd for Simao and there was still money left for a CB - albeit one deemed worthy of the outlay. If there was no expectation of signing Momo, or any central midfield player, this summer, then, by definition, in signing him we were using money which was partly (or even totally) allocated to buying other players. Don't see anything confirming we're skint in that. Although if you're working definition of 'skint' is us not being in a position to spend £25m+ on new players every transfer windown then fair enough. Not saying I agree like, but fair enough.

 

Not every transfer window. But in a window in which we have £20m from UEFA for the CL win plus 6 home CL games at £1.2m-a-game in gate receipts, I'd expect us to spend most of it. The fact that we didn't, and had to sell in order to carry out the planned spending tells me we're skint. Had we not won the CL and been knocked out by Graz we wouldn't have been able to buy anybody.

[Vincent Vega]

Didn't the club announce a very big loss in the accounts last year? I remember the likes Of Rushian and Tim coming up with reasons for this loss and explaining why it was there, and they seemed to intimate that the loss was written in for possibly tax reasons and was also linked to the new ground. But our spending in the transfer market this summer makes me wonder if it was in fact a real debt and that we had to start repaying that debt this year. I know we're not like Everton who haven't a pot to piss in, but I do wonder and worry about our financial affairs.

 

Long gone are the days when were able to buy a player and beat the British transfer record in the process, but maybe that's a blessing after having our fingers burned by the likes of Saunders and Collymore.

[Kopite]

Didn't the club announce a very big loss in the accounts last year? I remember the likes Of Rushian and Tim coming up with reasons for this loss and explaining why it was there, and they seemed to intimate that the loss was written in for possibly tax reasons and was also linked to the new ground. But our spending in the transfer market this summer makes me wonder if it was in fact a real debt and that we had to start repaying that debt this year. I know we're not like Everton who haven't a pot to piss in, but I do wonder and worry about our financial affairs.

 

Long gone are the days when were able to buy a player and beat the British transfer record in the process, but maybe that's a blessing after having our fingers burned by the likes of Saunders and Collymore.

 

Think back to when we dominated English and European football. Virutally all the players were brought in from the lower leagues, put in the reserves for a couple of seasons and then brought into the first team. This was supplemented by the occasional "big buy" (Alun Evans, Dalglish, Lawrenson) but the majority were nurtured.

 

It worked before and I don't see (Roque, Hobbs, Barragan) why it can't again.

[MLB]

There was £10 million to sign Simao, but that was money that was previously going to be spent on Michael Owen, which was in turn going to come from the (eventual) sale of Cisse. That's why all the right midfielders we were looking at up until that point where £1-1.5 million players.

 

Whatever way you look at it, we don't have very much money right now and we're just going to have to get used to it.

[Paul]

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that we spent £35m net from Cisse's arrival to the close of this window, in addition to paying out £10m to sever links with the previous regime? That is £45m spent since July 1st 2004 with at least another £10m clearly earmarked for Simao, too. So, £55m could have been spent since Djibbers arrival - that is not my definition of a skint club.

[Rashid]

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that we spent £35m net from Cisse's arrival to the close of this window, in addition to paying out £10m to sever links with the previous regime? That is £45m spent since July 1st 2004 with at least another £10m clearly earmarked for Simao, too. So, £55m could have been spent since Djibbers arrival - that is not my definition of a skint club.

 

Rafa has bought 17 players for £48,180,000 Plus £14M for Cisse = £62.18

Rafael Benitez sold 17 players for £22,500,000

 

Total spent Net in 2 seasons is £39.68 roughly £20M a season.

 

He has a lot of players out on loan too. To be fair Rafa has spent NET roughly thesame as Evans spent in 4.5 years. ;)

[Paul]

Rafa has bought 17 players for £48,180,000 Plus £14M for Cisse = £62.18

Rafael Benitez sold 17 players for £22,500,000

 

Total spent Net in 2 seasons is £39.68 roughly £20M a season.

So Cisse was signed for the season before he arrived? If you want to class it as two seasons Rash, you need to include the players who arrived the previous summer - Finnan and Kewell. And if your two seasons are last season and this season, then our spending opportunities for this season are not yet over.

 

However, this splitting of the figure is ridiculous. Whichever way you cut it, the club has still found £45m since July 1st 2004 and clearly had another £10m available for Simao.

[Rashid]

So Cisse was signed for the season before he arrived? If you want to class it as two seasons Rash, you need to include the players who arrived the previous summer - Finnan and Kewell. And if your two seasons are last season and this season, then our spending opportunities for this season are not yet over.

 

However, this splitting of the figure is ridiculous. Whichever way you cut it, the club has still found £45m since July 1st 2004 and clearly had another £10m available for Simao.

 

Paul in football we deal with transfer windows. Rafa has been here through 3 transfer windows: Summer 04, Jan 05, Summer 05.

 

In that time he spent £62.18M which includes Cisse for arguments sake.

In that time he has sold players and got in £22.5M.

 

The club has therefore spent £39.68M in his time here which is about £20M for every pre-season which to be honest is a fair amount of money. Although by big clubs standards it is below average.

[Paul]

Paul in football we deal with transfer windows. Rafa has been here through 3 transfer windows: Summer 04, Jan 05, Summer 05.

 

In that time he spent £62.18M which includes Cisse for arguments sake.

In that time he has sold players and got in £22.5M.

 

The club has therefore spent £39.68M in his time here which is about £20M for every pre-season which to be honest is a fair amount of money. Although by big clubs standards it is below average.

So you're moving the goal posts again, are you? First it was seasons, now it's windows.

 

You were claiming the club is skint. I pointed out we'd spent £35m since Cisse - although you seem to think it was about £40m. We also spent £10m on ditching GH. There was another £10m for Simao.

 

My point is very simple: we are not skint.

 

Oh, and one other point: we are Liverpool, not "big clubs".

[GJM]

There was £10 million to sign Simao, but that was money that was previously going to be spent on Michael Owen, which was in turn going to come from the (eventual) sale of Cisse. That's why all the right midfielders we were looking at up until that point where £1-1.5 million players.

 

Whatever way you look at it, we don't have very much money right now and we're just going to have to get used to it.

 

I don't think that's right. If we'd bought Owen then the arguement for selling Cisse is as much a footballing one as it is a financial one, i.e. we'd have too many forwards. It would make sense to sell the surplus striker to invest elsewhere in the team. The Simao deal was not, as far as I know, contingent on us selling Cisse, so that's not money that had to be raised from selling a player, but was part of our summer transfer budget. Plus, if we believe Rafa, we also had money for a CB, which we didn't spend because he couldn't get anybody he wanted at the price he was willing to pay. You have to think that there was at least £5m allocated for a CB. Not sure what that would add up to over the summer alone, but it's not a figure that I would associate with a club I would define as 'skint'.

[GJM]

Not every transfer window. But in a window in which we have £20m from UEFA for the CL win plus 6 home CL games at £1.2m-a-game in gate receipts, I'd expect us to spend most of it. The fact that we didn't, and had to sell in order to carry out the planned spending tells me we're skint. Had we not won the CL and been knocked out by Graz we wouldn't have been able to buy anybody.

 

But it would not just have been one season where we were relative failures in Europe, but would have been the 3rd season in succession. That would have been a very difficult financial scenario for the club and, as you say, would probably mean that we were looking at minimal investment this summer - especially as we'd spent a fair amount last summer and had a further outlay in January. The CL win certainly offset the 2 previous season's failures ,and the message is that, if we want to have money to spend on players, then a significant proportion of that will have to be generated from Europe, i.e. getting in the CL and at least progressing from the 1st group phase. If we fail, then it'll be 'sell to buy' situation. That doesn't seem so bad to me.