Liverpool to listen to offers for Aquilani.

[Guest Super Sub]

You can tell that this story is a non starter as WE are the only team stupid enough to buy a crock Alberto.

[Original202]

THE LEECHES said we weren't allowed to pay more - when they told Benitez he must make a profit in the transfer market to pay down the debt. Like I've said before where did the rest of the Alonso 'up front' transfer fee go?

 

Profit and cashflow are two entirely different things.

[Kennys_spell]

Oh. My. God.

 

Sorry, confused again - I was expecting an answer to my question.

 

Was that your answer?

[George Costanza]

As with Keane, its been a absolute transfer disaster. And as with Keane I can only hope we get a reasonable return for him.

 

I can't be arsed going into the blame game and finger pointing as to who's fault it was, but the simple fact of the matteris in football the buck always stops with the manager. Always has and always will.

[RedKnight]

Aquilani isn't a bad player but because Rafa adheres to his rigid formation so often (possibilities indeed) he's not getting used as effectively as he could be. Square peg, round hole. Like I said earlier, Lucas was clearly earmarked to be Alonso's replacement, why Aquilani was ever speculated on is anyones guess.

[Kennys_spell]

Profit and cashflow are two entirely different things.

 

You introduced cashflow - not me.

 

You didn't answer my question about the Alonso fee by the way. I'm sure it was simply an oversight.

[Guest Super Sub]

Profit and cashflow are two entirely different things.

 

Here, here, good old saying and it goes a little something like this:

 

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity,

 

or in our case:

 

Cash Flow is vanity, profit is sanity.

[Original202]

You introduced cashflow - not me.

 

You didn't answer my question about the Alonso fee by the way. I'm sure it was simply an oversight.

 

I introduced it because it clearly confuses you.

 

And where is the Alonso money? Sat in our bank account, or used towards paying off the debt, or used to pay wages, signing on fees or any other expenses the club has. We don't know.

 

Regardless of whether we paid £20m upfront or over 5 years, it's still £20m spent. We can't suddenly commit to spending another £20m just because we don't have to pay it all upfront.

[Kennys_spell]

Here, here, good old saying and it goes a little something like this:

 

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity,

 

or in our case:

 

Cash Flow is vanity, profit is sanity.

 

Alonso

Crouch

Bellamy

Sissoko

Carson

Warnock

 

and others

 

Hmmmmmmmmm

[Juan Galonso]

You introduced cashflow - not me.

 

You didn't answer my question about the Alonso fee by the way. I'm sure it was simply an oversight.

 

Maybe the new contracts to several new players all at once which was unprecedented for the amount of them we gave. Plus the managers new contract plus the Johnson transfer plus the Keane loss all had something to do with it.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

If he's on the bench against Burnley of all teams then he has no chance under Benitez. Mind you, some of our fans will think he's been rested for Thursday. The lad has had more rest than a corpse down your local cemetery.

[Kennys_spell]

I introduced it because it clearly confuses you.

 

Actually it doesn't - it's just irrelevant in the context of this debate.

 

And where is the Alonso money? Sat in our bank account, or used towards paying off the debt, or used to pay wages, signing on fees or any other expenses the club has. We don't know.

 

I think we do know - it's gone to pay the debt down for the Leeches. Which is why we couldn't go for the first choice as was planned.

 

Regardless of whether we paid £20m upfront or over 5 years, it's still £20m spent. We can't suddenly commit to spending another £20m just because we don't have to pay it all upfront.

 

But you could afford to go and buy another £20 Mill player if you're allowed to use the funds raised on the sale of another player.

 

Like I said, if you can't (won't) understand any of this I can't be bothered going through it all again.

 

Bye.

 

.

[Kennys_spell]

Maybe the new contracts to several new players all at once which was unprecedented for the amount of them we gave. Plus the managers new contract plus the Johnson transfer plus the Keane loss all had something to do with it.

 

So do you think - given the turmoil around the Leeches and the behind the scenes 'fund raising' that was going on - that it was a wrong move to tie these players to longer term contracts to ensure that any other clubs sniffing wouldn't be able to get them for a bargain?

 

Is that the point you are trying to make?

[Original202]

Sell Alonso £30m

 

Sign Aquilani for £20m

 

Pay £5m up front

Commit to pay £15m over the next few years

 

Regardless of having £25m in cash, you've already tied up £15m of it, so you can only spend £10m.

 

Otherwise you end up in more and more debt. The economy was fucked up by people buying now and paying later, you don't commit to spend money you don't have.

[RedKnight]

€12m already paid? Not sure where you've got your figures from but we paid €5m upfront and €3m in January, so that's €8m already paid, not €12m.

 

We've got another €7m to pay in 6 weeks, not €5m, but it is another €5m in 12 months.

 

So if we said he was going to be sold on 1st July, the date a lot of transfers seem to be done, we'd have already paid €15m of his fee.

 

But we still have to pay that outstanding €5m even if we sell him, so he'll still have cost us €20m.

 

If he does get sold in July, some of the add-on clauses won't kick in:

 

€300k or every year Liverpool qualify for the Champions League from 2010/11 to 2014/15 (maybe the clause still applies if LFC qualify with him gone, but it won't be kicking in this summer anyway).

 

€250k on reaching 35 appearancs, 70 appearances, 105 appearances, 140 appearances. (He's not going to get another 13 appearances in before the summer so none of those are going to be kicking in. If they do all kick in then maybe it''ll be because he turned out to be fit enough and good enough in the end. Maybe.)

 

€1m the first time Liverpool either wins the Premier League or Champions League by 30 June 2014 (if that kicks in and anyone complains they can get to fuck to be honest).

 

We also have to give 5% of any future transfer fee to Roma.

 

All of those figures are in Euros remember, not pounds.

 

The €20m that we've committed to pay for him is not £20m.

 

We paid (or have committed to pay) £17m for him. Not £20m. Why does it always get rounded up? Surely if it's being rounded to the nearest £5m then we should be talking about him costing £15m?

 

But what I think it's time the club came clean about is just what did happen last summer with the money.

 

That last sentence sounds like you equate the money of Aquilani's transfer with the lack of transfer cash elsewhere. Slighly seperate issues for me, one is a black and white agreed transfer, the other is speculation and educated guesswork.

[Juan Galonso]

Sell Alonso £30m

 

Sign Aquilani for £20m

 

Pay £5m up front

Commit to pay £15m over the next few years

 

Regardless of having £25m in cash, you've already tied up £15m of it, so you can only spend £10m.

 

Otherwise you end up in more and more debt. The economy was fucked up by people buying now and paying later, you don't commit to spend money you don't have.

 

Good analogy. Which reminds me I still have to pay for my £260 washing machine and my £450 wardrobes on buy now pay later. If I don't pay them I will end up blacklisted. I wonder what would happen if we didn't commit to the Roma money? We would be taken to court.

[Kennys_spell]

Sell Alonso £30m

 

Sign Aquilani for £20m

 

Pay £5m up front

Commit to pay £15m over the next few years

 

Regardless of having £25m in cash, you've already tied up £15m of it, so you can only spend £10m.

Otherwise you end up in more and more debt. The economy was fucked up by people buying now and paying later, you don't commit to spend money you don't have.

 

That's just silly - the payments over the next few years are not paid from the fee received from Alonso that is put into a bank account - it's paid off from generated funds that football clubs make.

 

If you have £30 Mill then you can pay for a number of players - for instance Silva with the larger part of the fee up front (Let's say £15 Mill with the remaining £15 Mill over the next few years) but if that £30 Mill is taken away to pay for something else you can't make that sort of purchase.

 

The important part of that equation is:

 

Sell Alonso £30m

 

Sign Aquilani - Pay £5m up front

 

Commit to pay £15m over the next few years, LEAVING £25 Mill funds to play with.

 

So where did that go?

[Original202]

You could do it that way and hope you'll continue to generate enough money to cover your debts.

 

But you could end up missing out on Champions League football, in which case you're going to struggle. Look at what happened at Leeds and Portsmouth.

 

I'm putting it in very simple terms, but it's risky to start committing money you may never have.

 

I don't deny the Americans have made his job even more difficult though.

[Original202]

Commit to pay £15m over the next few years, LEAVING £25 Mill funds to play with.

 

So where did that go?

 

We're going around in circles here. I don't know where the cash is, none of us do as we don't see what happens in the accounts.

[Kennys_spell]

You could do it that way and hope you'll continue to generate enough money to cover your debts.

 

But you could end up missing out on Champions League football, in which case you're going to struggle. Look at what happened at Leeds and Portsmouth.

 

I'm putting it in very simple terms, but it's risky to start committing money you may never have.

 

I don't deny the Americans have made his job even more difficult though.

 

But surely the best way to fail to qualify for Champs League football is to have funds taken away from your first choice purchase to pay down debt placed on the club by Leeches.

 

I agree it is risky to start spending money you may never have but if your allowed to spend money you already have (rather than have to pay off debts) then the purchases you do make will likely perform as expected. As evidence of this I offer you Reinna, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, and Torres as purchases that fit within that criteria.

[Kennys_spell]

We're going around in circles here. I don't know where the cash is, none of us do as we don't see what happens in the accounts.

 

I think we do know where the funds go - you don't appear to want to acknowledge it.

[Dougie Do'ins]

I think he's a contributor - I don't think he's to blame.

 

It's like someone saying you have to go out and by a car that can win a Formula 1 race - but only giving you the budget to purchase a Volkswagon Polo.

 

Get rid of the Leeches - then judge the Manager. If he fails - get rid. But given the record he had when he was operating on an almost level playing field I would think it only prudent to see what he could do with a Level playing field.

So given how much he's working with both hands tied, how do you account for last season ?

[Original202]

I think we do know where the funds go - you don't appear to want to acknowledge it.

 

Not really, we know money has been taken away from the transfer pot to service the owners debt.

 

But it's also likely we have some cash reserves held back to service long term transfer debt and contractual bonuses etc.

[Kennys_spell]

So given how much he's working with both hands tied' date=' how do you account for last season ?[/quote']

 

Good management.

 

Although to be fair last season was achieved with a very good team - a team that was broken up by Alonso and Arbeloa demanding a transfer to Real Madrid. Can't really blame the Spanish lads for wanting to go and play for the best team in Spain.

[WilliamW]

Good management.

 

Although to be fair last season was achieved with a very good team - a team that was broken up by Alonso and Arbeloa demanding a transfer to Real Madrid. Can't really blame the Spanish lads for wanting to go and play for the best team in Spain.

But you can blame Benitez for alienating our best player last season. Extremely poor management (again).