Or change it so that they don't sign shite in the first place.

Ah, yes, the famous "magic flawless prescience" strategy.

I can't think why he mightn't have tried that.

muzo - benitez's biggest signings are torres and mascherano. each is arguably the best player in his position in the world, so i don't get your "rafa can't handle a big transfer kitty" point.

QUOTE:
If you're the club accountant, then you're seriously breaching client confidentiality.

If you're not, you're making things up.

I picked that up from more than one "quality" newspaper.

garcia wrote:

QUOTE:
muzo - benitez's biggest signings are torres and mascherano. each is arguably the best player in his position in the world, so i don't get your "rafa can't handle a big transfer kitty" point.

It's easy to say that about Torres now, he was a great player in Spain but it wasn't guaranteed he would successfully adapt to the English game in one season, and Mascharano was "loaned" for only £1.5 million initially.

Which if anything only supports the claim that Benítez has substantial transfer-market nous. Unless you find the strategy that got them too high-risk, and would like the club to buy only proven world-class players, who have previously demonstrated their aptitude for the Premier League, on what you believe to be an extremely restricted budget.

muzo - the points you have just made contradict your stated view that benitez doesn't know what he is doing.

So because Benitez buys a player for £26m and that player turns out to be good, he's a transfer market wizard?

Are you guys actually aware of the amount of money that man has pissed away on average and bad players in the last four years? Eight million here, six million there, seven million here, nine million there, all coming to just under £90 million net, and still they can't get a proper challenge together for the league title. That's what Muzo means when he says Benitez is a serial squanderer of funds.

It's incredible how much Liverpool fans are prepared to let Benitez away with because of 2005, though going by the ones I talk to (with one exception) that tide is definitely starting to turn.

Doctoro Doctoro wrote:

QUOTE:
Which if anything only supports the claim that Benítez has substantial transfer-market nous. Unless you find the strategy that got them too high-risk, and would like the club to buy only proven world-class players, who have previously demonstrated their aptitude for the Premier League, on what you believe to be an extremely restricted budget.

Benitez eventually paid £18 million for Mascharano but not before he knew he was good enough. Not exactly "high-risk", where's the nous there?

The Alonso transfer to Juventus has fallen through, I hear, putting the Barry transfer in jeopardy. Sounds like a restricted budget to me.

Let me put this in terms you may understand better.

BOUGHT GOOD PLAYER. PLAYER GOOD. NOT SIGN OF BAD TRANSFER SINCE NOT BAD TRANSFER.

What???

Well, I tried.

HH, i was only responding to muzo's point that benitez can't be trusted with big transfer fees. .

QUOTE:
Are you guys actually aware of the amount of money that man has pissed away on average and bad players in the last four years? Eight million here, six million there, seven million here, nine million there

<grinds teeth>

i don't deny that if it had been sixteen million here, eighteen million there, twenty five million there, as ferguson has spent over the last few years, liverpool might have ended up with a better standard of player. but as we know, the club doesn't have that kind of money.

over the first few seasons rafa had to buy a lot of players because the squad he inherited was much weaker than those of the rival clubs. if you have to buy a lot of players and you don't have chelsea money, it's obvious that the players are not going to be top shelf guys like torres and mascherano.

nevertheless has still made some very astute signings in the £4-8m bracket - agger, reina, skrtel, crouch, garcia. and obviously he has dropped a few bollocks - morientes, pennant, mark gonzalez. but as we know he is hardly alone in this respect.

QUOTE:
Well, I tried.

DD, I assume you were talking about Torres. Benitez signs Torres for a huge transfer fee, Torres turns out to be good. Well good for him. You give me Torres, I give you Josemi, Morientes, Gonzales, Bellamy, Kronkamp, Crouch, Garcia. Guys who couldn't cut it or weren't trusted.

No no no, he has dropped rather more than "a few" bollocks. You are failing to come clean here because you have a lot emotionally invested in this guy and you simply will not accept that he repeatedly makes ineffective signings.

At the risk of repeating myself, he has spent more than anybody else since 2004 apart from Mourinho, so this idea that Liverpool's board won't give him the cash is bollocks. And instead of buying, say, one really good player for £15m-£16m, he repeatedly buys three ordinary ones for the same amount of money.

And this idea that it's impossible for Rafa to find a very good player for less than twenty million pounds is bollocks too. Adebayor and Vidic each cost £7m. Sagna was £6m, Evra less than that. Artur Boruc was a million quid and a few jerseys. They're out there if you make an effort to look for them instead of whingeing that your board won't give you a blank cheque.