Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Boggles wrote: »

Not when he comes out with qoutes like this, not accepting blame for the amount of dross he purchased over the past 5 years.

The age-old complaint from anyone not in the fiscal elite is that they cannot compete with their wealthier opponents. The moneybags likes of Chelsea and Manchester United have their Italian-loafered feet on the scraggy throats of the rest, and they are lucky simply to get the scraps cast aside from the big table.

It's a useful tactic for some managers to employ. To foster an 'us against them' attitude and to dampen expectations, and it's a tactic that Rafa Benitez has down to a tee.

Rafa said yesterday: "Every year, United collect £60million more than us - and that means they can buy three £20m players each season. Chelsea will have spent £500m over the last five years.

"We've made a team that can compete with them but economically we're inferiors and can't afford the players they can.

"I have enough data to bore you with it. But if you look at United, it wasn't just spending £32m on Dimitar Berbatov - they can spend whatever it takes for what they need every year. Last year it was £17m on Owen Hargreaves, £18m on Nani and £20m on Anderson. Seven years ago they paid £30m for Rio Ferdinand.

"In my five years, I've paid less in transfer fees than I've received, even though I spent £40m on Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane. It's as simple as that."

Simple eh? Rafa has spent less than he's received. Let's just check that.

According to the excellent and thorough TransferLeague.co.uk, since Benitez took charge of Liverpool in 2004, he has spent an impressive £215,490,000 on players, receiving £98,030,000. Our rudimentary maths tells us that amounts to a net spend of the not inconsiderable sum of £117,460,000.

If one is to be fair - and we are nothing if not fair - one should knock off the £14million paid for Djibril Cisse in 2004, as that was Gerard Houllier's deal, but even then Rafa's net spend tots up to £103,460,000.

By way of comparison, those big money bullies Chelsea have a net spend of £131,150,000 in that time, while Manchester United - the trampling behemoths cited by Rafa - have splashed £93,300,000