A Positive Transfer Policy? Probably Not.
By: Taylor Rockwell | February 3rd, 2009So, I was out of the office all day yesterday, but when I checked my email late last night, I was thoroughly confused. Wait… where has Robbie Keane gone? To Spurs? Hasn’t he been there before? He has… so… Rafa’s pretty much gone certifiably insane, then?
It started off as a joke when the Spaniard’s press conference led many to believe the Liverpool manager had lost his mind, but after falling to third in the Premier League and selling off Robbie Keane for £12 million (a possible loss of £8 million), I’m starting to wonder if he hasn’t gone off his rocker.
“I’ll teach Hicks and Gillette to question me! Next up, Torres to Hull for £2 million and sandwiches!”
The global economy isn’t exactly stellar, and to potentially lose £8 million at a club where the owners would be happy to never spend another dime really has to give the Scousers pause for concern… only a brief pause mind you, before they continue on breaking into Stevie G’s house so as to steal either his Champions League medal (for the second time) or his hubcaps. Whichever they can find easier.
Regardless, if you take a look at the names and dollar amount of strikers signed under Benitez, and it isn’t exactly a model of stability/frugality:
Morientes (£6m)
Crouch (£7m)
Fowler (FREE)
Bellamy (£6m)
Kuyt (£9m)
Voronin (FREE)
Torres (£26m)
Babel (£11m)
Ngog (£1m)
Keane (£20m)
That’s a total of £80 million. Add in the £6m he paid for Cisse (even if he was Houllier’s signing) and you’re looking at £86 million for, ostensibly, Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt, and Ngog. That’s not to say that Fergie has been a discount shopper over the years. However, it seems that he has a knack for buying young players for relatively small amounts and then only splashing big cash when it seems most logical (see: Tevez and Berbatov).
Perhaps I will eat my words when Ngog becomes a scoring machine and Kuyt remembers that he is playing football, but until then I’ll just toe that party line and say, as objectively as possible, “HE’S CRACKING UP, HE’S CRACKING UP, HE’S CRACKING UP, RAFA’S CRACKING UP!”
Oh, and Rafa… if you think that your best option would now be to go after Fergie for whatever misguided reason you think up, remember the words of Stevie Bruce. When asked how to take on SAF in a war of words, Brucie responded, “How do you take him on? You don’t!”
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Category: Manchester United
Tags: insane, Liverpool, lost his mind, Manchester United, Rafa Benitez, Robbie Keane, Sir Alex Ferguson, transfersSubscribe
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Comments
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Jaun Sebastian Veron?
Roy Carrol?
Eric Djemba Djemba?
Fabian Barthez?
Diego Forlan?
Tim Howard?i know you must be quite daft to support United but the irony of this post is shocking ..
Posted from
Canada
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Yup… notice that the majority of those signings coincided pretty much perfectly with United struggling in a league dominated by Arsenal and Chelsea… I would say that you are completely correct in that Fergie MADE some terrible signings… Rafa continues to do so…
Posted from
United States -
… and you forgot Kleberson in that bunch…not to mention the fact that every player I listed above was signed on as a goal scorer… which was the point of the list…
Posted from
United States -
steven from Canada,
It doesn’t matter if SAF signed all those duds, most of them were Carlos Queiroz’s targets, some were just talented kids who didn’t develop and others, like Veron and Forlan were true stars that didn’t settle, much like Keane at Liverpool. What really matters, is that SAF realised they were duds and got rid of them quickly. Although i still regret letting Howard go, he’s performing admirably well at Everton, and he may be bought back if Foster and KitKat don’t rise to the ocassion of being UNited’s No1.Posted from
United States -
Steven, since Rafa has arrived at Liverpool, he has spent 170M£ re-building his squad, despite winning the CL in his first season, having spent 25M£ to buy Josemi, Luis Garcia, Xabi Alonso, Antonio Nunez, Mauricio Pellegrino, Fernando Morientes and Scott Carson. In the same time, Ferguson has spent 130M£.
Yes, Ferguson has had his fair deal of bad deals. But he’s been at Manchester four times longer than Benitez at Liverpool. So you should be pulling out a list of failures that’s at the very least twice as long as Benitez’.
Howard a “flop”? Sure, he wasn’t as good as Schmeichel, but for 2,3 M£ he was a decent fill-in. What’s more, Ferguson made a small bob since Everton paid 3M£ to buy him. Barthez wasn’t a massive success either, but his first season was very good, and winning the league twice in three years isn’t too bad, especially when in those two league wins your club conceded the fewest goals in the league… Carroll is more legitimate, but he was signed as a backup goalkeeper for Barthez, not to be #1. Compare him to Itandje who’s biggest feat so far has been to concede two goals against Barnsley if you want to, but not to Reina.
But I’m pretty sure 20M£ for Keane only to sell him off for 12M£ six months later is a record depreciation. Veron was a high-cost failure, but even he only managed to depreciate by 13M£ in two years (28M£ to 15M£)…
And Taibi, Pruiner or even Poborski and Cruyff could make a list of Fergie’s mistakes…
Posted from
United States -
on top of the logical arguments made by taylor vishnu and shazback, let me remind you that SAF has won 10 PL titles, 5 FA Cups, 2 Carling Cups, and 2 Champions League trophies (and a knighthood) at Man United while Rafa has won 1 FA Cup and 1 Champions League trophy. You can argue that SAF has been at United longer, but since Rafa took over Alex has won 1 more Carling Cup and 2 more Premier Leagues. The numbers obviously say that Alex’s signings have been wiser.
Posted from
United States -
I personally think Rafa should have held on to Robbie.. you cannot say that a player could not adjust to the new environment in six months…that’s just bogus.. this selling is more to do with the backroom power struggle b/w Benitez and Parry… in these days when its really hard to find a good striker its just dumb to sell a good one off so easy… the max he should’ve done is to let him go on a loan for six months and settle the dispute in the summer…
I can see Rafa hoping that Torres lasts the rest of this season uninjured, but what about the next full season?? and if they just want to buy namesakes like Dirk Kuyt next summer then I am happy!Posted from
United States -
People tend to forget, but when we signed Vidic and Evra in the transfer window, no one was really all that impressed. After six months with the squad and a full bit of training, look where they are now.
You can’t expect a big name player to get immediately settled… unless you’re me and that player is Berba… then that’s a completely logical thing to do…
Posted from
United States
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