Tom Hicks "We spent £300million on players, £150million net"

Without throwing a spanner in the works whichever way you look at it it's 172 million spent on players wether it's net spend or not, I would expect a lot more from a squad of players that cost that much. Let's also not forget perhaps our best player Gerrard and Carragher cost us nothing.

Now I am no manager but if you keep Stevie and Carra in the side I am sure that spending that amount of money we should have a better starting eleven than we do. I understand the likes of Hansens frustrations bottom line it's still a lot of money spent.

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

Personally Rafa has bought a lot of tosh to the club, granted he bought some gems to..but I would like to have seen him spend big on one player rather than his Babel and Rieras with an Ngog thrown in. 

Without throwing a spanner in the works whichever way you look at it it's 172 million spent on players wether it's net spend or not, I would expect a lot more from a squad of players that cost that much. Let's also not forget perhaps our best player Gerrard and Carragher cost us nothing.

Now I am no manager but if you keep Stevie and Carra in the side I am sure that spending that amount of money we should have a better starting eleven than we do. I understand the likes of Hansens frustrations bottom line it's still a lot of money spent.

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

Personally Rafa has bought a lot of tosh to the club, granted he bought some gems to..but I would like to have seen him spend big on one player rather than his Babel and Rieras with an Ngog thrown in. 

Anyone know what Houlliers net spend was?

Without throwing a spanner in the works whichever way you look at it it's 172 million spent on players wether it's net spend or not, I would expect a lot more from a squad of players that cost that much. Let's also not forget perhaps our best player Gerrard and Carragher cost us nothing.

Now I am no manager but if you keep Stevie and Carra in the side I am sure that spending that amount of money we should have a better starting eleven than we do. I understand the likes of Hansens frustrations bottom line it's still a lot of money spent.

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

Personally Rafa has bought a lot of tosh to the club, granted he bought some gems to..but I would like to have seen him spend big on one player rather than his Babel and Rieras with an Ngog thrown in.  

And if you don't sell the £8m player but still need a squad player you have £2m to play with.  Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City & to some extent, in the last 3/4 seasons, Spurs & Villa haven't had to fund squad improvements by selling players first.  You don't improve your squad like that & Rafa has let it known that he was often rebuffed on his no 1 targets by the board.  If he hadn't sold to buy, to try & increase our squad depth, how much would the gross spend be?  Anywhere near the £172m you've quoted?  That's why gross spend is inaccurate, because people react like we had it on one lump sum, that we didn't recoup a lot of it from player sales.  Rafa had to build incrementally, was always under pressure to balance the books and when you're given that kind of mandate and not able to buy your first choice targets, you're going to suffer.  Rafa brought some dross, that I'll agree, but name me a top manager that hasn't.

As for Carragher & Gerrard being our best two players, not on form they aren't, over the last two seasons that's easily Reina.

Point being Roddenberry he was selling players that he had bought himself which is what was frustrating.

Without throwing a spanner in the works whichever way you look at it it's 172 million spent on players wether it's net spend or not, I would expect a lot more from a squad of players that cost that much. Let's also not forget perhaps our best player Gerrard and Carragher cost us nothing.

Now I am no manager but if you keep Stevie and Carra in the side I am sure that spending that amount of money we should have a better starting eleven than we do. I understand the likes of Hansens frustrations bottom line it's still a lot of money spent.

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

Personally Rafa has bought a lot of tosh to the club, granted he bought some gems to..but I would like to have seen him spend big on one player rather than his Babel and Rieras with an Ngog thrown in. 

Point being Roddenberry he was selling players that he had bought himself which is what was frustrating.

Er.... possibly because his buys were the ones who increased their value??

Anyway this is about what Tom said he spent which he doesn't actually know because at the start of the interview he was talking £'s spent and at the end he was using $'s - huge difference especially with today's exchange rate.

Point being Roddenberry he was selling players that he had bought himself which is what was frustrating.

Yes and usually at a profit & to fund further improvements to the squad.  Managers do sell players they buy, Rafa sold several of his mistakes,often quickly & profitably, isn't that a sign of a good manager, realizing mistakes  & rectifying them?

I am not saying Rafa did not make mistakes, even the man himself has admitted that he has made mistakes bringing certain players to the club. All managers have their bad buys and the record of Slur Fungusface and his gang of disciples in the transfer market are also very average. It is always a case of hit and miss when you are buying players in the 5 - 10 millions pounds range.

F**k me Gazza are you for real , an net spend of £27 million in his tenure says all you need to know , there is no arguing with figures. 4 transfer windows with a transfer surplus

 In the same time check Barc Real Inter Chelsea Man citys net spend in the same time and come back to me

Anyone know what Houlliers net spend was?

Houllier spent       £130.9m
Houllier recouped  £60.3m
Houllier net spend  £70.6m

Think of the inflation in the transfer market since then and Houllier massively out spent Rafa.

Here the figures using Tpi football inflation.

Houllier spent        £278m
Houllier recouped  £99.4m
Houllier net spend £171.4m

£300 million on players? And bought a £150 million pound net? where the F**k does he go fishing! 

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

What you have to remember Gazza is that sometimes players were sacrificed to bring in better players and funded the moves in itself i.e Sissoko for Masch, Garcia and Bellamy for Torres.

Players that we would never have got otherwise.

£300 million on players? And bought a £150 million pound net? where the f**k does he go fishing!  

 

Classic!

Houllier spent       £130.9m
Houllier recouped  £60.3m
Houllier net spend  £70.6m

Think of the inflation in the transfer market since then and Houllier massively out spent Rafa.

Here the figures using Tpi football inflation.

Houllier spent        £278m
Houllier recouped  £99.4m
Houllier net spend £171.4m

In contrast Rafa net spends over his entire tenure are.

Benítez spent        £223m
Benitez recouped  £159.3m
Benitez Net Spend £61m look at that figure that equates to £11m per season net £5.5 million per transfer window net.

To be fair heres the figures for Rafa using Tpi football inflation.

Benítez spent         £278m
Benitez recouped    £215.1m
Benitez Net Spend  £62.9m

What you have to remember Gazza is that sometimes players were sacrificed to bring in better players and funded the moves in itself I.e Sissoko for Masch, Garcia and Bellamy for Torres.

Players that we would never have got otherwise.

I don't think you'll have much luck...

This doughnut was last in the queue when they were handing out jam.

F**k me Gazza are you for real , an net spend of £27 million in his tenure says all you need to know , there is no arguing with figures. 4 transfer windows with a transfer surplus

 In the same time check Barc Real Inter Chelsea Man citys net spend in the same time and come back to me

Add Villa to that list, the 'saviour' (according to some) that is Martin O'Neill, had a net spend at Villa that was almost equal to the net spend during the whole of Rafa's tenure.  Spurs under Harry would probably be interesting reading to.

Without throwing a spanner in the works whichever way you look at it it's 172 million spent on players wether it's net spend or not, I would expect a lot more from a squad of players that cost that much. Let's also not forget perhaps our best player Gerrard and Carragher cost us nothing.

Now I am no manager but if you keep Stevie and Carra in the side I am sure that spending that amount of money we should have a better starting eleven than we do. I understand the likes of Hansens frustrations bottom line it's still a lot of money spent.

People are being a little blinded by the term net spend here. If you sell a player for eight million and buy another for ten you are still buying a ten million pound player.

Personally Rafa has bought a lot of tosh to the club, granted he bought some gems to..but I would like to have seen him spend big on one player rather than his Babel and Rieras with an Ngog thrown in. 

He tried to get big players, if you actually did some research you would realize that. He was constantly undermined by the board. He wanted Alves, Malouda etc and instead had to settle for the kind of players you mentioned.

That's the main point here - a lot of people gloss over the fact Rafa was not buying his first choice, and instead blame bad buys on him. It's kinda like giving me 10 bucks to go get a good ladder. Then you fall off the ladder because it's not very stable, and you blame me for it. Well, thats what you get for giving me peanuts to buy something.

It is the media hating Benitez that is blaming Rafa for everything, I even heard a supposed F***ing Liverpool fan on the radio today saying what did Hicks and Gillette do wrong it was Rafa that wasted all the money

It is the media hating Benitez that is blaming Rafa for everything, I even heard a supposed F***ing Liverpool fan on the radio today saying what did Hicks and Gillette do wrong it was Rafa that wasted all the money

He didn't have a Slurred Scottish accent did he? Or even a Texan twang??

I normally listen to the football show on today fm. Had to turn it off at the first caller. Blamed Rafa straight away saying the owners had given him the money. Its like he just watched ssn and rang in to give an opinion basing Hicks' claims as factual. The mind boggles

I normally listen to the football show on today fm. Had to turn it off at the first caller. Blamed Rafa straight away saying the owners had given him the money. Its like he just watched ssn and rang in to give an opinion basing Hicks' claims as factual. The mind boggles

Some are just clueless whoppers mate, I've seen a few on here myslef in the last 14/15 months

People like that should not be allowed near a phone. Dick heads.

I normally listen to the football show on today fm. Had to turn it off at the first caller. Blamed Rafa straight away saying the owners had given him the money. Its like he just watched ssn and rang in to give an opinion basing Hicks' claims as factual. The mind boggles

It is the media hating Benitez that is blaming Rafa for everything, I even heard a supposed f**king Liverpool fan on the radio today saying what did Hicks and Gillette do wrong it was Rafa that wasted all the money

Its these 'fans' which make me hate modern football, I think we have less of them than other clubs but F***ing hell why do our ones seem so intent on phone-ins.