Benítez, The Great Money Waster?

[Sir X]

Exactly what the antagonist will say when we challenge for titles next season after King Kenny has added depth to Rafa squad .The duds will be lauded for playing a different brand of ball and the question will then be why wasnt this so under Rafa?....of course the 2005 cl,06 Fa cup , 07 cl runners up and 09 primer leagure runners up will be forgotten and dismissed as punching above the belt or luck where our true position under Benitez should have always been 6 or 7th place.

Fact is Rafa laid down the master plan and King Kenny will execute it.Those of us with unbiased eyes will know where the credit should lie.

[Paul Marin]

duds have a way of doing that especially if they are "far too many"

leave it to you ...

[Paul Marin]

Lucas is by far the most improved player on the team. And a top 4 has to be the goal, although it is a far cry from where we need to be. At this stage in the season, we should be talking about winning the blastid ting.

[Sir X]

Paul what do you think of this Dud ?

Liverpool’s tactics and shape worked magnificently as they restricted Chelsea and played a counter attacking game that produced the three points. Lucas Leiva was again impressive in midfield, with an amazing pass completion record of 89%.


Its hilarious that the antagonist against Rafa reign refuse to take into consideration an injury plaqued season that had up to 7 regular starters out of action after finishing runners up to Man U the preceding sesaon.

The fact that he managed to finish 7 , says alot about the quality of the man.The fact that his net spend has given the club more value and revenue earned when players have been sold and will continue to do so when they don a liverpool shirt , says alot about the quality of the man.

King Kenny has embraced all things Rafa and put his stamp on it and I quote, I like the squad , I could not ask for a better group of players.

Dismissed as psycho bable ,no doubt to discredit the quality left by Rafa , well results dont lie , and chelsea was the biggest to date, no doubt more to come.

Top 4 mi say.

[Sir X]

When you have a sell to buy policy that perception will exist.The club is in good standing because of him a midtable mentality would say its all deadwood and any manager that comes in would struggle to get the best out of them,He would argue he needs time to clear them out to put his stamp on the team (Hodgson) a top 4 would say he loves the quality and all it needs is strengthening in terms of depth to win the title .

[Gamma]

duds have a way of doing that especially if they are "far too many"

[Paul Marin]

I meant to post this on Friday. Thanks as it is a great no nonsense presentation of fact versus fiction. Benitez by every measure made the club money with his signings but he had far too many duds which is what created the negative perception.

[Sir X]

[FONT=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif]Kenny Dalglish: Permanent LFC Manager?

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  Posted on February 6th, 2011
  Posted by by Paul Tomkins
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  Every appointment in football management comes with some degree of risk. Even if a manager has been there and done it, can he do it again at another club, or in another season? No manager gets the exact same set of circumstances from one job to another.
  An incredible amount had changed in the 20 years Kenny Dalglish spent away from Liverpool, but since his return it’s like he’s never been away.
  
  Four wins on the bounce, achieved with four clean sheets. The same players that Roy Hodgson and his cronies believed “no-one could do better with” have already won two of three away games under Dalglish, to one win in Hodgson’s 10. Indeed, Dalglish achieved this latest win without Torres, or his replacements, Suarez and Carroll.
  It took no time at all for the difference to be seen from Hodgson’s departure – like night and day – and while it’s true that we’re still riding the Dalglish bounce, it is the sound fundamentals of his reign that are the key factors behind the upturn in fortunes. How did Liverpool’s winner at Stamford Bridge come about? Short goal-kick from Reina to Agger. Then pass, pass, pass, 17 times, into the back of the net. Football from the back. Same as at Wolves in the previous away game.
  In fairness to Hodgson, his purchases may be viewed more favourably as time passes, with Meireles, who was good under him, getting better, and even Christian Poulsen looking fairly sound. If he finally stays fit, the decision to bring back Aurelio will make sense, even if he is yet one more of the 30-somethings the ex-Fulham manager brought in.
  But the way Hodgson deployed this same squad of players was a travesty. It really was an insult to the fans. Liverpool underperformed in finishing 7th last season, and Benítez could no longer sufficiently motivate the group; but now the Reds, winning 2.17 points a game under Dalglish, are back up to 6th.
  The aberration was the 19th place the Reds sunk to under Hodgson, and the 13th place he left the team, with an unacceptable, negative goal difference; winning points at a rate of just 1.25 a game. Draw a graph, and the dip is under his watch; it forms a dramatic ‘V’. It’s even more pronounced on goal difference. With (mostly) Benítez’s much-maligned squad, Dalglish has done this.
  But has he done enough to earn the job on a permanent basis?
  The rest of this post is for Subscribers only.
  

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[Sir X]

[FONT=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif]Benítez, The Great Money Waster?

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  Posted on February 5th, 2011
  Posted by by Paul Tomkins
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  Just when I think I’ve got little new to say about Rafa Benítez and his work at Liverpool, his record comes under attack yet again, and I feel compelled to put that record straight. While Benítez can no longer even be referred to as Liverpool’s previous manager, ‘his’ players have been very much in the news this week.
  The latest nonsense came on BBC, following an interesting and open interview with the Spaniard. Martin Keown, sat in the Football Focus studio, said that he spent £230m on 77 players, and therefore would need money wherever he went. And so on continues the idea that Benítez was a reckless spender and a big-money waster.
  
  Along with Graeme Riley and Gary Fulcher, I’d already covered Rafa’s record inPay As You Play, in comparison with a number of the other major Premier League-era managers. Obviously issues can be covered in more depth in a book than on a blog, but I’ll try to point out a few truths.
  First of all, the total of ‘77 players’ makes no sense.
  I make it 43, because I’m not counting all the random youth players that all other managers buy for nominal fees but don’t get pulled up on. Perhaps Benítez bought too many of these, but as with the book, I’ve not taken them into account in terms of spending or recouping money. I’ve only looked at those who started a league game for the Reds.
  Now, this is not done to favour Benítez; it was a rule of the book, and given the £5m recently received for San Jose, Dalle Valle, Kacaniklic and Palsson, and the £5m value of Daniel Pacheco (who’s yet to start a league match), it’s fair to say that, on the whole, he probably made more money than he lost in such deals. But the amounts aren’t massive either way.
  Now, the point of Pay As You Play was to take all fees at 2010 money, whether a player was bought in 1993 or 2009. But for the sake of this piece, I will use both standard prices, and our Transfer Price Index’s CTPP (Current Transfer Purchase Price). With the 2010/11 transfer window now closed, we can calculate ‘2011 money’, but that’ll take a while to compile the data. So for now, all fees from last season are still at 2010 money. Capisce?
  In actual money (i.e. discounting inflation), Benítez spent roughly £229m on players. So the £230m quoted on the BBC sofa is fairly accurate.
  Of the 29 Benítez signings to have subsequently been sold by Liverpool, the figures are startling: £153.6m spent on those players by the Spaniard, and £190.3m recouped by himself and his two successors.
  
  
  Add the other 14 signings still at the club, and it comes to £229.4m spent, but £287.4m in money recouped. In other words, if the rest of Rafa’s signings were sold off this season, he’d end up roughly £60m in profit, without inflation taken into account.
  
  
  Now, current values of existing players were set by a panel of experts (football journalists, scouts) for the book. So these are speculation. What’s interesting is that Mascherano was valued at £20.1m, Torres at £48.8m and Babel at £7.8m, or £76.7m combined; the actual sale fees ended up at £76m. So while player value depends solely on what two clubs agree is acceptable, and change depending on the player’s form and fitness, our estimates of market value were fairly accurate.
  One figure I would take umbrage at is the £14.3m valuation of Pepe Reina; word was that Arsenal bid in excess of £20m in the summer, so if anything, he (like many keepers) was undervalued, and one of Rafa’s best purchases is worth even more than listed. However, in other cases, players may be viewed as overvalued. But again, on the whole there is no way the figures are skewed in Benítez’s favour.
  Genuine Profit
  One of the concepts devised for Pay As You Play was ‘genuine profit’. In other words, it takes into account the value at the time of purchase when inflation is applied. A clear example is Xabi Alonso: £10.5m in 2004, but that equates to £19.1m in 2010 money. So with the sale for £30m, the ‘actual’ profit was closer to £10m rather than £20m.
  This means that as, on average, prices rise more than they fall, it’s harder to make a genuine profit.
  The following shows that, even under this harsher ‘rule’, Benítez comes out favourably. And the same is true by comparison with his contemporaries, with only Arsene Wenger outperforming him (and by a a small amount). Of the top points-scoring managers in the Premier League history, they were the only two who operated at a genuine profit.
  The table below splits his signings into genuine profit – already sold and still at the club (i.e. rise in value) – break-even, and genuine loss.
  
  
  
  
  Of course, in time this could all change; Glen Johnson’s value will depreciate as he nears 30 (though he’s still only 26), Alberto Aquilani may not yet be sold to Juventus if the Italian club can’t afford the pre-agreed fee, and so on; then again, players’ values can rise as well as fall, and a youngster like Jonjo Shelvey could be a £10m+ player of tomorrow. But when every last one of his signings has moved on, the club will almost certainly have earned more money in terms of transfer fees than it shelled out. Yes, there are wages to take into consideration, where even free transfers resulted in a ‘cost’; but there’s also prize money, which, following four extended Champions League runs, was at high levels between 2004 and 2009.
  (As with all transfer work, the caveats are listed in the book – although many can be read here, in the Introduction.)
  The Benítez chapter from Pay As You Play is available below for subscribers only.
  

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