British Players/Foreign players. Must it be one or the other?

 Lets open up with a bit of total honesty here, a surely beyond dispute fact. Our big Summer signings have been bitterly disappointing so far. Give or take the odd million quid, they were Carroll at 35 million, Downing at 20 million and Henderson at 16 million. I'm certainly not going to dispute that we could have got better for the money, only a fool would do that and I aren't one of those. Nor am I going to dispute that Mata is a better player than Downing, or that Ramires is a better player than Henderson, or that Robin Van Persie is a better player than Carroll. Is it the case though that only fools buy British as some on here would suggest? I'm not so sure it is. Nor of course am I saying that we shouldn't buy from abroad either, that would be ridiculous. My point is that British transfers are only the same as any other transfers, you've just got to make sure you buy the right players in the first place.

 For example. As already stated Mata is a better player than Downing, anyone can see that. That said, so is Ashley Young. The Mancs paid 4 million quid less than we paid the same club for Downing, had we signed one and not the other would we be better off? Of course we would. Was Ashley Young a bad buy at 16 million quid? Of course he wsn't. Similarly, was Phil Jones a bad buy at 16 million quid? Of course he wasn't (and lets not forget we tried to buy him too). Was Gary Cahill a bad buy at 7 million quid? Of course he wasn't.

 My point is essentially that oft' stated generalisation on here that buying British is silly, (which is then used as a stick to beat Kenny with) isn't true. Look at the Manc team for example. Rio Ferdinand was a big money purchase from these shores, as was Carrick, Valencia, Rooney etc etc. In the past they bought the likes of Keane and Ince and Pallister and Bruce and Sheringham, so clearly their policy has included buying British AS WELL AS  foreign.

 Quite simply where players come from doesn't matter, they just have to be good players who can handle the Premiership. Buying ALL foreign probably isn't the answer, and buying ALL British isn't the answer either. Buying good players is the answer, it's really as simple as that.

 It then follows that this Summer we must either buy better players, or some of the players we have bought need to start playing much better. Or both.

The biggest problem for me is forgetting nationality for a moment our goal was to buy quality, PL experience and good fitness records with our summer signings.

The fact is adam, downing, carroll, enrique have all been relegated in the last few seasons. Bellamy was playing in the championship last year. Hendo was playing for a mid table team.

We've gotten what weve paid for. Weve got mid table players who aspire to more but havent been able to achieve it. The main problem is we've paid world class money for some of these.

Now we are in 7th barely and people are questioning the signings. They are doing as they always do. 'Moneyball' has let us down bigtime when common sense could tell you 80m on 4 british relegated/mid table players with no pace who arent THAT young was a big gamble. However 80m on 3-4 of europes best prospects sounds like a good idea without even mentioning names. It doesnt have to be about nationality but the players we bought are average professionals mid 20's with some room for improvement. We could have bought spanish or italian versions of these signings (riera, dossena etc).

Again the big problem is that we spent world class figures on average workman type players. When rafa bought these players they were 6-10m types.Weve gotten exactly what we overpayed for.

IF NESV can afford to drop 50m every year then we can move on swiftly and learn from our mistakes.. if not then i dont see how we can challenge the top teams without a miracle of youth coming through combined with a top manager (maybe like Rafa) turning us into a tight pressing compact side punching above our weight. 

Good post Mick. Mata is a better player then Downing. Would Mata come to a team like us hell no. Im sick of people saying we should of got Mata for 20m. We just didnt have what they wanted and we got the type of players that we deserve.
Also why do people say the players we have got has been a waste of money. There liverpool careers are not done. Its a waste of money once we sell them for 2m and they havent given anything in return.
sh*t im grumpy.

As long as they are quality, sign them.

I actually see the point in signing Adam, Henderson, Downing and Carroll back in 2011. Adam, Downing and Henderson were one of the few who were top in the assist chart. They were meant to supply the ammunition but haven't done so. Downing is a seasoned Premier League player and I have to admit I've always liked him but again, it just looks like it isn't working out. Henderson and Carroll, I can see the sense in signing homegrown youngsters with potential. Yeah, prices may be high but who actually pays less nowadays with the way Man United, Man City and Chelsea inflating the prices ..

But I don't agree with the all British policy, if I'm honest. I never thought British players were particularly good in football (no offence intended). Players like Rooney is good and Gerrard is probably the best English player in the last 10-15 years.

I'd be tempted to take a chance with quality foreigners like Neymar, Javi Martinez or Lavezzi now. I would used to argue that they have no PL experience but that doesn't matter anymore. Look at Suarez, Torres and of course Downing and Robbie Keane.

And of course, no matter what anyone says, Champions League is still an attraction to the big players. Not everyone is like Luis Suarez and Suarez himself probably didn't expect us to be this terrible in the league this season.

As for hendo it is mainly confidence issue.Last match he got an excellent shooting chance and wasted it without even trying to shoot. He would have been much better if he got slowly introduced into the first team. From a confident hendo i expect more forward passes than what is happening now(currently it is like he has eyes only at back and side.No front vision).
Adam is a back up player.You cant sign a world class player and place him on the bench as a backup for gerrard.
Carrol ;I think it was a panick buy(but still he was injured to play straight away??).I cant see him being a success.He lacks that striker instinct which can't be taught. He may get some assists by the knock downs because of  brilliant suarez playing with him.
And now it is clear that KK has not have faith on carrol(not starting).
Enrique was a bargain buy
I don't know what DC saw on downing
The rest of the games this season will tell us about carrol's future at liverpool.But will support him as long as he is playing for us.

As long as they are quality, sign them.

I actually see the point in signing Adam, Henderson, Downing and Carroll back in 2011. Adam, Downing and Henderson were one of the few who were top in the assist chart. They were meant to supply the ammunition but haven't done so. Downing is a seasoned Premier League player and I have to admit I've always liked him but again, it just looks like it isn't working out. Henderson and Carroll, I can see the sense in signing homegrown youngsters with potential. Yeah, prices may be high but who actually pays less nowadays with the way Man United, Man City and Chelsea inflating the prices ..

But I don't agree with the all British policy, if I'm honest. I never thought British players were particularly good in football (no offence intended). Players like Rooney is good and Gerrard is probably the best English player in the last 10-15 years.

I'd be tempted to take a chance with quality foreigners like Neymar, Javi Martinez or Lavezzi now. I would used to argue that they have no PL experience but that doesn't matter anymore. Look at Suarez, Torres and of course Downing and Robbie Keane.

And of course, no matter what anyone says, Champions League is still an attraction to the big players. Not everyone is like Luis Suarez and Suarez himself probably didn't expect us to be this terrible in the league this season.

Thankyou great post.
To be honest i dont care how much Carroll was. Yes we shouldnt of paid that much for Carroll. But i dont know how people can say Carroll will never prove his worth.
Im pretty sure people would pay another 20m for Torres before he left to score 60 more odd goals to make his tally to around 120 goals and his price tag being 40m. So pretend Liverpool bought Torres for 40m and scored 120 goals for the club  Then imagine if Carroll scored around 120 goals for Liverpool then he would be 5m cheaper  then Torres was.

No one tell me they wouldnt of bought torres for 40m if they knew he was going to score 120 goals.

Nationality should not be an issue when signing a player.  Quality is what is important.  The problem i do have with british players is i think they are more limited technically and tactically to their foreign counterparts. I think this is largely down to the coaching systems in place. I personally think the Spanish system for coaching kids is the best and they have reaped the rewards. I would absolutely never over pay for British players and think that is the mistake we have made.

I've got no problem with us buying British players.

My problem is with us buying sh*t British players.

I don't really care if we buy British players or foreign players as long as they cut it for the club!

My problem is with us buying sh*t, overpriced British players.

Fixed!

We lost alot of money on selling on players until recently and buying players 29 and over has been expensive but what we have done now is buy potential and this season it has not worked.
Over the last 20 years our buying of players has been largely poor and we have bought expensively.Now out of the CL again its going to be hard to get the talent we want unless we pay a premium price.

The trouble with buying players is you just never know, wherever they are from.
There are exceptions tho, anyone with eyes could see Mata, Silva and Aguero were always going to be top class, but we also know how much they get paid every week, we cant afford their wages, add to that we dont have champions league football and you can see why we didn't get them. Likewise even a blind man could see Carrol isnt worth anywhere near 35M.

Personally I dont think that our buys have been that bad, but we paid over the odds for some of them. Enrique and Adam were good value for money, despite what I said about Adam initially, he was bought at 'squad player' price and is a good squad player, Enrique has been outstanding.
Henderson has youth and quality and Downing is starting to find his feet but we overpaid a bit for both of em.
Our other option would have been to buy foreign players, of the same quality, and I think that would have been a bigger gamble as they dont have PL experience and generally want bigger wages.

On the whole I believe that foreign players are more mercenary that domestic players. They move for money, a chance of trophies or CL football and if they don't get it they want to be somewhere else. Domestic players do still want the money and trophies but are willing to fight for them at the club they are at, they don't go running of for pastures new if things don't go right.

At the end of the day nationality has to be taken into consideration, its just unfortunate that the worlds best players no longer come from the UK, except Steve G obviously.

If you're signing British players like Bale or Wilshere, then fine. If you're buying such limited British players as Downing and Carroll for £55m then you're clearly wasting money which could be spent more wisely on vastly superior players from the continent.

As long as they are quality, I want them to be signed.

We've seen "experienced and seasoned" Premier League players move clubs only to not fit in in other clubs or flop like Robbie Keane (Spurs to us), Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea) and even Joe Cole (Chelsea to us).

Then we've seen foreigners who has never played in the English league but takes the league by storm - e.g., Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid to us), Luis Suarez (Ajax to us) and Mata (Valencia to Chelsea) are some of them.

It doesn't matter where they come from anymore, whether they've played in England or not and so on.

As long as you're a good footballer, you can adapt.

I am not so sure it is as simple as most would like to think. Over the past few years there has been a switch away from buying top foreign stars by most clubs (excluding Citeh and Chelsea) not because they don't perform on a cold night at Stoke or are only interested in the CL, but because it has become financially prohibitive for most clubs, even with paying over the odds to buy British. 

Until recently the high exchange rate of the Euro and the high tax rate in Britain of 50% meant that while the cost of the transfer might equate to the cost of a similar player in Britain, the overall package to entice a foreign player was much higher.

Certainly ignoring Citeh and Chelsea who have their own private printing press, the trend over the last few years has been for the big foreign stars to be sold abroad rather than brought over here.  Alonso, Mascherano, Ronaldo, while even the super rich Chelsea has been looking more to buy their foreign stars from the stock already over here rather than abroad.(Torres, Meireles)

When was the last time the mancs bought big from abroad?

As Alonso said back in 2009 :-

Xabi Alonso warns that tax will drive top players away

Even footballers have turned on the government. Xabi Alonso believes Gordon Brown's economic policies have weakened English football and that the Premier League's star players could be forced to the Continent to escape the weak pound and the incoming 50p tax rate.
The world's an oyster: Xabi Alonso believes players will move away to protect their salaries
By Duncan White

10:00PM BST 20 Jun 2009

Alonso is refusing to commit himself to Liverpool next season, with Real Madrid eager to to take him to the Bernabeu, and with Alonso estimating he is losing a third of his earnings he is edging closer to a return to Spain.

"Of course we footballers think about it; we are not stupid, we keep an eye on it," Alonso said. "When you see your contract down by 30 per cent you cannot be happy. I cannot do anything – it must be Gordon Brown or David Cameron.
 

" I think the weakness of the sterling is not helping the Premiership because for those competing and fighting against the European teams it is a big weak point. Hopefully over the next few months and years it will get back to what it was not so long ago."
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/5578084/Xabi-Alonso-warns-that-tax-will-drive-top-players-away.html

An example of this would be if we bought a player for £20million who was on £100k per week in Spain we would have to pay him £130k per week for him to break even, or over £6 million extra over a 4 year contract. 
 

Last weeks budget changed the 50 p tax rate down to 45p from next April.
Im going to phone Xavi (Xabi)  and see if he wants to come home.
With Friends And Family I might surprise Mascher as well !

When was the last time the mancs bought big from abroad?

Probably around the same time they last looked good in Europe.

Lets be honest we have failed to attract the cream of british players down to the fact we never challenged for the league, unless they were home grown most went to manure,chavs or arse  even now 1 or 2 look at spuds as a better prospect than us and one of the reason is Champions League football.

When was the last time the mancs bought big from abroad?

De Gea for 20 million in the summer

Lets be honest we have failed to attract the cream of british players down to the fact we never challenged for the league, unless they were home grown most went to manure,chavs or arse  even now 1 or 2 look at spuds as a better prospect than us and one of the reason is Champions League football.

Hammer...nail ...head

i think we have bought what we could afford henderson is overpriced but may come good
adam doesnt look fit enough gives two many fouls but isnt a bad back up
downing getting better all the time
carroll cant say a lot about him panic buy of highest order
think kenny needs to give shelvey a couple of games now we dont know if he is going to be good enough

Lets be honest we have failed to attract the cream of british players down to the fact we never challenged for the league, unless they were home grown most went to manure,chavs or arse  even now 1 or 2 look at spuds as a better prospect than us and one of the reason is Champions League football.

Up to a point your right Shabs, we couldn't attract the cream of British football because we had  the poisonous yanks creaming off us, selling our assets and underwhelming our then manager, meanwhile, Harry houdini was given the reins at Spuds and allowed to bring in the players which would in turn bring CL football,

had Herpes and Gonorrhoea acted like proper owners and backed Rafa we would not be in the state we are in now, Kenny has been left to pick up the pieces, and rebuild from a position at least 2yrs behind our rivals,

it will probably take longer to than first envisaged for Kenny to get us back to where we truly belong and thus far he is doing a grand job, in the meantime tho we are playing catch-up, but be rest assured we will get there,

ask yourselves this, how many trophies have the Arse,Spuds,Chavs,Toon won in the last few seasons?, F**k all, but we have and we are behind 75% of those above, if thats not seen as progress then i don't know what is,CL football is not that far away, we will get there but we need to build bit by bit,

                           IKWT     YNWA

I think we need a striker that can score bags of goals.  We need to find the best player available to us from anywhere in the world.

I think we need a striker that can score bags of goals.  We need to find the best player available to us from anywhere in the world.

This , this , this !
Last year we announced we  were buying British. I hope this year we say nothing and just get on and sign them.

i don't think we'd be having a fraction of these debates if we had a decent striker who could convert a few more of the chance we're creating.

for me, caroll is the only huge let down. downing turns in occasional motm perf and goes missing for a couple of weeks and adam is a decent squad player. as for henderson, i think it was an unnecessary purchase. he's not a winger and we already have more than enough people in the middle of the park, so i don't understand that purchase. their price tag is indeed a problem, but, looking at how many chances we've wasted over the season, it's clear the main problem is at the front, not in the middle.

but, i'm not going to blame kenny as suarez and enrique have been superb signings and coates is already looking good. i'm afraid we have to cut our losses with andy and replace him with a 15+ goals per season striker, all will be rosy then.

My point is that British transfers are only the same as any other transfers, you've just got to make sure you buy the right players in the first place...

Quite simply where players come from doesn't matter, they just have to be good players who can handle the Premiership. Buying ALL foreign probably isn't the answer, and buying ALL British isn't the answer either. Buying good players is the answer, it's really as simple as that.

Nice honest opening post mate so sorry for just grabbing these parts.

On the point of buying the right players: Of course you are right as it's been proven time and again; neither cost nor country of origin can be an indicator to whether or not a signing will succeed. (We can all rhyme off some names to prove this).

I know I've written this on other threads but the facts are:

* No-one has ever gotten signings 100% right. British or not.

* No-one ever signs a player knowing they will fail.  British or not.

* Everyone who has ever signed a player has believed that they are the 'right player'.  British or not.

Having said that we must remember too... with the new homegrown rule 'senior homegrown' (forget 'British') players are a necessity and therefore, like it or not, they come at a premium rate. Remember a team must include six homegrown players in the match-day squad of sixteen.

I have a theory that, like it or not, stage one was to secure the signings of a few players who fall into that category and are still young enough to play for a number of seasons (Henderson, Downing, Carroll). Stage two will, in my opinion, include the promotion of younger 'homegrown' players and the inclusion of 'foreign' signings'. To that end I believe we'll see more 'foreign' than homegrown signed this Summer.

I'm sure there are those out there who'll disagree with my opinion as I'm equally sure there be some who'll only see any 'foreign' influx as an admission that buying British is wrong - something, of course that 'they' knew all along.

At note of caution (not that it's needed):'... this 'act' still won't mean that we'll have bought the right players. Although we can guess and pontificate all we like: we will only know for sure if they're either 'better' or 'right' AFTER the fact. 

I think this whole nationality debate is silly, English players tend to be overpriced but it doesn't mean all of them are bad business. Quality and price are the main things to take into consideration, irrespective of where the player was born. The reason this debate was brought up so many times this season was that we apparently went for British based players and, since most of them didn't work out, generalization started.

I think this whole nationality debate is silly, English players tend to be overpriced but it doesn't mean all of them are bad business. Quality and price are the main things to take into consideration, irrespective of where the player was born. The reason this debate was brought up so many times this season was that we apparently went for British based players and, since most of them didn't work out, generalization started.

Have to agree with this completely, just as in other parts of life where you come from and the color of your skin does not make a person, it is the skillset and what that person is inside.

But we can't sign any more over priced over rated English players ........

For me its about finding the balance irrespective of nationality, most the successful clubs have a blend of English and Foreign players, Arsenal early on with Keown, Bould, Adams, Dickson, Petit, Overmars etc, United with Gary Neville, Bruce, Scholes Beckham, Schmicael, van nistelrooy, Chelsea with Fat Frank, Joe Cole, Cech, Ballsack, etc etc.

We meed quality but we need value overall. Its no good spending stupid money unless they are proven quality. I mean proven over a decent spell not half a season (Carroll). You have to accept to a degree that all transfers are a risk no matter how good they are normally. The player has to fit the style of play of that team as well as have quality. I still believe Carroll was a bit of a desperate knee jerk purchase when Torres dumped on us.

How many half decent midfielders could we get for the Henderson price tag? How many decent forwards could we get for the Carroll price tag? That has to be the robbery of the decade, even if he was a good player that we needed.

In 1987, Kenny bought English League players at overinflated and record fees. The European Cup football that you could get in Italy or Spain, was no deterrent. The difference was they were top players who he wanted and we needed, and we got what we paid for. We broke record after record on the pitch the following season. Buying English League players isn't a problem, spending money wisely is.

I think we have a good core of HG players now and will most likely be kept ticking over by the youth system.
Now that's done with let's just get the right players at the right price.
I don't care where they are from.
No more rushed buys though. Do your F***ing homework on the next few and maybe lay off the stats analysis slightly.

The problem seems to be this: Take 2 players that are equally talented. Exactly equal. One's British, the other's a foreigner. The British player costs about 33% more because of the homegrown rule.

Specifically, Downing supposedly cost 16M. If he were Spanish or Dutch he would have been about 12M and we wouldn't be complaining so much. 

Agreeing with others here, LFC seems to have its quota of British players. I'd bite the bullet and sell Carroll, however painful a loss that would be. He just isn't quick enough to play in a pass and move club like Liverpool aspires to be.  LFC needs to stop trying to fit such a miscast player into its system. I'm not in love with Adam, but to be fair he's ok for the price as a squad player -- he never would have gotten this much play had Lucas and Gerrard not been missing so much. I think Henderson will be a fine player in 2-3 years, keep him and nurture him. Downing -- I'm not sure -- keep him for now unless you can get better in the summer?

We need to scour the planet -- everywhere -- and bring in 2-3 young, quick, ballsy, relentless attackers this summer. There are 10 or 12 young future 15-20 goal-per-year scorers in the Premier League, Germany, Spain and Italy somewhere out there right now. Kenny and Comolli need to find two of them this summer (before someone else does), whether they are in Mexico, Uruguay, Portugal...or England.   

Ultimately it doesn't matter where they come from as long as they're any good. I'd imagine the buy british policy is on the back burner at the moment though.

I've got no problem with us buying British players.

My problem is with us buying sh*t British players.

This!