Liverpool squad/keeper/spending comparison thread [read post #161]

Just to update this

Summer 2009 Dealings

Players Out
Alonso £30m
Arbeloa £3.5m
Leto £3m
Hammill £500k
Hobbs £300k (Received £400k but there was a sell-on clause)
Anderson £250k
Hyypia 0
Pennant 0
Total In £37.55m

Players In
Johnson £17m
Aquilani £17m
Kyrgiakos £2m
Chris Mavinga - minimal training compensation
Aaron King - minimal training compensation
Jesus Fernandez - minimal training compensation
Total out £36m

Net Profit £1.55m

Mavinga went into the reserves and Fernandez and King into the Academy so I don't think they should be used when comparing with other teams spending.
Also the fingers involved are unlikely to be much in terms of transfer fees with Mavinga 18, and King and Fernandez 16.

Mr Alan wrote: »

pretty sure Alonsos fee rises to 34m

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/8184444.stm

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/0804/alonsox.html

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/breaking-news/2009/08/04/liverpool-fc-agree-fee-for-xabi-alonso-liverpool-fc-latest-news-100252-24316295/

I just use the actual fee as tracking add-ons is just too tricky in most cases.

Mr Alan wrote: »

but virtually every transfer in this day & age is inclusive of add ons & performance related payments?

I know but in the majority of cases the prices quoted do tend to be ex of the add-ons. Given there is an element of uncertainty about transfer fees anyway, I'm ok with this. Also it's easier.:D

Just wanted to update this to include Hyppia to give a comprehensive account of the value of the players at the club when Rafa took over and to show that people who talk about Rafa being a poor judge of players are slightly misinformed.

This is the list of the players who have been sold who were at the club before Rafa arrived

2004
Markus Babbel £0m - In a sense very unlucky with his illness
Danny Murphy £2.5m - Looks like a pretty poor price now
Michael Owen £8m - Coco the clown - deal done before Rafa arrived
Emile Heskey £6.25m - Looks like a poor price now

2005
Antonio Nunez £1.5m - Legacy of the Owen deal more Coco the clown magic
Milan Baros £6.5m - Looks a reasonable price
Diouf £4m - Looks like a poor price now
Smicer £0m
Henchoz £0m
Alou Diarra £2m

2006
Kirkland £3m - Always thought we should have got more
Mellor £500k - Could have got more looks fair now though
Traore £2m - No comment
Hamman £0 - Shocking
Morientes £3m - Probably fair
Cheyrou £0 - No comment

2007
Dudek £0 - Free to Real Madrid. Gah!
Zenden £0 -Arrived on a free, left on a free
Cisse £6m - Doesnt look like we got value here - broken leg didnt help
Diao £0m - No comment
Warnock £1.5m - Looks like a bit of a bargain given what Villa paid this summer (£6.5m plus £1.5m in add-ons)
Sinama-Pongolle £2.7m - Probably about fair

2008
Le Tallec £1m - Just glad to get anything
Kewell £0m - No comment
Riise £4m - A decent price in a sale :eek:
Finnan £2m - Looks like a stroke of genius with his injury

2009
Hyppia £0m - I don't think anyone can find fault with this one.

I said it already but in general the price we received for a lot of thes players were pretty poor. I'm hopeful that with Parry gone things should improve a fair bit. One has to wonder how exactly Parry would have done if he had been handling the sale of Alonso. Probably would have gotten 100 Real Madrid shirts with Ronaldo on the back.:eek:

Anyway the total is £56.45m for 27 players or just over an average of £2m.
Even allowing for bad luck with regard injuries/sickness (Babbel/Diouf) as well as not doing great with regard to letting players go for free, combined with wiht being poor at achieving decent prices for some players, it's clear to see the squad wasn't in great shape when Rafa took over.

Now lets have a look at the updated list of players Rafa has bought and sold during his time at the club.

Garcia £6m £4m
Nunez £0m £1.5m
Pellegrino £0m £0m
Josemi £2m £0m
Kronkamp £0m £2m
Morientes£6.3m £3m
Carson £.75m £3.25
Zenden £0m £0m
Barragan £0m £680,000
Gonzalez £4.5m £4.2m
Sissoko £5.6m £8.2m
Crouch £7m £11m
Bellamy £6m £7.5m
Paletta £2m £1.5m
Pennant £6.7m £0m
Keane £19m £16m
Alonso £10.5m £30m
Arbeloa £2.6m £3.5m
Leto £1.85m £3m

Rafa has made a profit of £18.53m on players he brought into the club and subsequently sold.

While there were undoubtedly "flops" the only ones you could classify as such were the following

Pennant (net cost £6.7m) - Did help win a CL so even for Rafa's worst flop still got some use out of him.
Keane (net cost £3m) - Keane is an unusal case but to summarise for those who don' know any better - [The initial fee was £19m plus £1.3m in add-ons. When he was sold back to Spurs the basic fee was £12m with £4m in add-ons as long as Spurs didnt get relegated plus another £3m in the more standard add-ons. Depending on how Spurs do over the next few seasons/how Keane performs in terms of playing matches/scoring goals, there is a reasonable possibility of getting nearly all of the £19m paid for him initially back, with £16m already received.] As such he doesn't look likw quite the masive flop some people would have you think.
Morientes (net cost £3.3m) - The move to England didn't work out. Still managed to recoup £3m so not a total disaster.
Josemi (net cost £3m) - Has to be considered a flop

While there are a couple of others in there who didnt set the Premier League alight, Rafa didn't exactly lose much money on these. (Gonzalez, Paletta) There were a lot more who were stepping stone players who Rafa moved on at a profit in order to buy better players. (Bellamy, Sissoko, Carson). Alonso stands out as a player who was integral to the team who was moved on for significant profit [I don't think it's necessary to rehash the ins and outs of his sale, the relevant point here is that when he was sold he was moved on for approximately £20m in profit]

There is also the key fact that the squad is in much stronger shape than when Rafa took over and there are a number of players in the current squad who would realise a fair bit more than was paid for them if they were to be sold. There are also very few players who you would expect to see significantly negative returns if they were sold on in the next while.
I would say only Babel and Dossena are the only two who you would expect to realise less than 80% of their cost if they were sold today. This is more than balanced by the vast majority of the players who if they were sold would realise a profit. There is also the fact that there are a number of the youth players (a fair few who have arrived at the club under Rafa's auspices)who even if they don't make the grade at Liverpool over the next few years are likely to recoup a decent profit in terms of being sold on.

In general I think if you look at the facts, it is inescapable that Rafa is up there with the very best when it comes to the transfer market.

Mr Alan wrote: »

but i think you either use the fees incl potential add on's, or you don't.

for example as far as i know the fees for Aquilani & Johnson (Aquilani especially) is heavily based on future add on's etc. yet you've quoted the full fee in your listing incl potential add ons, but then when it comes to Alonso you've quoted the fee excl add ons.

ah well either way! we all know Rafa is pants in the transfer market

Aquilani's fee is broken down into a number of installments and add-ons(something like pay €6m this year, €4m next year, €4m year after , €3m year after €3m year after) Basically there is a total of €20m basic, the payment of which is spread out over the next 4/5 years. These are not add-ons as they are not dependent on anything. This €20m (equivalent to £17m) must be paid even if he never plays for Liverpool. There are also add-ons to the value of
£3m which will fall due when certain events occur. Typically theseare probably the usual mix of player appearances, player scoring(moreso this one for strikers) and the club acheiving things (winning the league, winning the CL, qualifying for Europe). However the fact is that we owe Roma this £17m no matter what plus possibly the additional £3m dependent on various circumstances. I have a link to the Roma page which showed the breakdown in detail (Hurrah for whatever regulation forces the Italian clubs to do this - I think it's a stock exchange thing - was also how Riise's transfer fee was confirned) but I'm not arsed tracking it down at the moment.

{Given Aquilani's injury record I'm pretty sure the club is insured so that if he picks up an injury in his first game and his career is over, the club would received a large pay-out which would go a fair bit towards covering the payments to Roma}

Also to be more than scruplously fair I don't generally include any of the add-ons Livepool might receive (unless I'm pretty much 100% they will/have been paid a la Keane) but in most cases where it isn't clear what amount of add-ons in a deal, I will include the overall figure Liverpool have to pay. For instance I'm pretty sure that at least some of Johnson's price is add-ons but I didn't see any reports which even hinted at this. Better to play it safe on this I think.