If You Were Rafa

I don't think there is a single person on this board that agrees with absolutely everything that Rafa has done whilst he's been at this club, some more than others but everyone would have done something different. So what would you have done given the same circumstances as Rafa has had?

It's the summer of 2004, and this is your squad:

1  Jerzy Dudek  Goalkeeper
 40  Paul Harrison  Goalkeeper
 12  Paul Jones  Goalkeeper
 22  Chris Kirkland  Goalkeeper
 29  Patrice Luzi  Goalkeeper 
 25  Igor Biscan  Defender
 23  Jamie Carragher  Defender
 3  Steve Finnan  Defender
 2  Stephane Henchoz  Defender
 4  Sami Hyypia  Defender
 36  Jon Otsemobor  Defender
 18  John Arne Riise  Defender
 21  Djimi Traore  Defender
 27  Gregory Vignal  Defender
 28  Bruno Cheyrou  Midfielder
 15  Salif Diao  Midfielder
 17  Steven Gerrard  Midfielder
 16  Dietmar Hamann  Midfielder
 7  Harry Kewell  Midfielder
 20  Anthony Le Tallec  Midfielder
 13  Danny Murphy  Midfielder
 26  Richie Partridge  Midfielder
 34  Darren Potter  Midfielder
 11  Vladimir Smicer  Midfielder
 32  John Welsh  Midfielder
 5  Milan Baros  Striker
 9  El Hadji Diouf  Striker
 8  Emile Heskey  Striker
 33  Neil Mellor  Striker
 10  Michael Owen  Striker
 24  Florent S Pongolle  Striker

Over the eight transfer windows up to the present day you have a nett transfer budget of £80m to spend, the same as Rafa had, and you can buy any player that another other club bought during that period for the same price they cost at the time. Obviously we would have never had that budget all in one season so for arguments sake lets say you can't exceed £30m nett spend in any one season, I'm pretty sure Rafa hasn't gone above that figure. I have listed the players sold by Rafa below, any players sold will be sold at the same price he got for them, and you can opt to keep anyone that he sold but it will obviously leave you less funds for signings. If you would have sold players Rafa hasn't sold then try to be realistic with the price we'd get for them (no valuing Kewell at £6-11m Magillionare). About £20m of that £80m was spent on youth players, I've made a seperate list of the youngsters Rafa's bought and you can decide whether to redress the balance between investing in youth & investing in the first team accordingly. You might also want to think about any changes in tactics you would have made over the seasons, I have included a link to the results section on the official website so you can refresh your memory of any games where you might have done things differently.

It is going to take a while for me to get all my thoughts together so I'll post later with my own opinion on what I would have done differently. Obviously I understand there is a lot to go on there so I don't expect people to cover every aspect, but I would ask that people give it a bit of thought if they're going to bother to reply. A comment like 'I wouldn't have bought Pellegrino' is pretty much stating the obvious, at least try & go into a bit more detail as to who you would have bought instead. Get your thinking caps on people, it will be interesting to hear your opinions.


Players bought by Rafa

Josemi Rey Malaga £2,000,000 26.07.2004
Antonio Nunez Real Madrid £1,500,000* 17.08.2004
Xabi Alonso Real Sociedad £10,700,000 20.08.2004
Luis Garcia Barcelona £6,000,000 20.08.2004
Mauricio Pellegrino Valencia Free 05.01.2005
Fernando Morientes Real Madrid £6,300,000 13.01.2005
Scott Carson Leeds United £1,000,000 21.01.2005
Josh Mimms Rotherham United £50,000 16.06.2005
Antonio Barragan Sevilla £240,000 04.07.2005
Boudewijn Zenden Free Transfer Free* 04.07.2005
Jose Reina Villareal £6,000,000 04.07.2005
Mohamed Sissoko Valencia £5,600,000 14.07.2005
Peter Crouch Southampton £7,000,000 20.07.2005
Godwin Antwi Real Zaragoza Unknown 15.08.2005
Miki Roque Lleida Unknown 15.08.2005
Jack Hobbs Lincoln City £150,000* 18.08.2005
Besian Idrizaj LASK Linz £190,000* 22.08.2005
Ramon Calliste Free Transfer Free* 29.08.2005
Mark Gonzalez Albacete £1,500,000* 20.10.2005
Paul Anderson Hull City Player Exchange* 01.01.2006
Jan Kromkamp Villareal Player Exchange* 04.01.2006
Daniel Agger Brøndby £5,800,000 12.01.2006
David Martin MK Dons £250,000* 12.01.2006
Robbie Fowler Man City Free 27.01.2006
Craig Bellamy Blackburn £6,000,000 01.07.2006
Gabriel Paletta Club Atlético Banfield £2,000,000 04.07.2006
Fábio Aurélio Valencia Free 05.07.2006
Jermaine Pennant Birmingham £6,700,000 26.07.2006
Dirk Kuyt Feyenoord £9,000,000 18.08.2006
Nabil El Zhar St Etienne £200,000 21.08.2006
Astrit  Ajdarevic Falkenberg £750,000* 11.01.2007
Daniele Padelli Sampdoria On Loan* 12.01.2007
Jordy Brouwer Ajax Undisclosed* 24.01.2007
Francisco Durán  Malaga £66,000* 30.01.2007
Ronald Huth Tacuary FC Undisclosed 31.01.2007
Álvaro Arbeloa Deportivo £2,500,000 31.01.2007
Javier Mascherano West Ham On Loan 20.02.2007
Lucas Leiva Gremio £5,000,000 11.05.2007
Mikel San José Domínguez Athletic Bilbao £270,000 28.06.2007
Sebastian Leto Club Atlético Lanús £1,800,000 01.07.2007
Fernando Torres Atletico Madrid £20,200,000 04.07.2007
Andriy Voronin Leverkusen Free* 06.07.2007
Yossi Benayoun West Ham £5,000,000 12.07.2007
Ryan Babel Ajax £11,500,000 13.07.2007
Charles Itandje Lens Undisclosed 09.08.2007
Emiliano Insúa Boca Juniors £1,300,000* 26.08.2007
Martin Skrtel Zenit St Petersburg  £6,500,000 11.01.2008
Javier Mascherano Media Sports Investment £17,000,000 29.02.2008


Players sold by Rafa
 
Danny Murphy Charlton £2,500,000 10.08.2004
Michael Owen Real Madrid £8,500,000* 14.08.2004
Stephane Henchoz Celtic Free 28.01.2005
Vladimir Smicer Bordeaux Free 13.06.2005
El Hadji Diouf Bolton £3,500,000 15.06.2005
Mauricio Pellegrino Alaves Free* 17.06.2005
Alou Diarra Lens £2,000,000 23.06.2005
Mark Smyth Unknown Free* 01.07.2005
Paul Harrison Unknown Free* 01.07.2005
Richie Partridge Unknown Free* 01.07.2005
Gregory Vignal Portsmouth Free* 01.07.2005
Igor Biscan Panathinaikos Free* 01.07.2005
Jon Otsemobor Rotherham United Free* 01.07.2005
Patrice Luzi Unknown Free* 01.07.2005
Antonio Nunez Celta Vigo £2,000,000* 29.07.2005
Milan Baros Aston Villa £6,500,000 23.08.2005
John Welsh Hull City Player Exchange* 01.01.2006
Josemi Rey Villareal Player Exchange* 02.01.2006
Zak Whitbread Millwall £200,000 13.06.2006
Bruno Cheyrou Rennes Undisclosed 29.06.2006
Ramon Calliste Unknown Free* 01.07.2006
Robbie Foy Unknown Free* 01.07.2006
David Raven Carlisle £0* 03.07.2006
Fernando Morientes Valencia £3,000,000 05.07.2006
Dietmar Hamann Bolton Free 11.07.2006
Antonio Barragan Deportivo £675,000 03.08.2006
Djimi Traore Charlton £2,000,000 09.08.2006
Carl Medjani Lorient Free 12.08.2006
Neil Mellor Preston £500,000 30.08.2006
Jan Kromkamp PSV Eindhoven £1,750,000 31.08.2006
Chris Kirkland Wigan Ath. £3,500,000* 27.10.2006
Darren Potter Wolves £250,000* 18.01.2007
Stephen Warnock Blackburn £1,500,000 22.01.2007
Salif Diao Stoke Free 25.01.2007
Florent S Pongolle Recreativo de Huelva £2,700,000 04.05.2007
Daniele Padelli Sampdoria Returns from loan 08.06.2007
Danny O' Donnell Crewe £100,000 13.06.2007
Jerzy Dudek Real Madrid Free* 01.07.2007
Robbie Fowler Cardiff Free* 01.07.2007
Boudewijn Zenden Marseille Free* 01.07.2007
Luis Garcia Atletico Madrid £4,000,000 03.07.2007
Djibril Cissé Marseille £6,000,000 09.07.2007
Craig Bellamy West Ham £7,500,000 10.07.2007
Mark Gonzalez Real Betis £3,500,000 17.07.2007
Gabriel Paletta Boca Juniors £1,200,000* 26.08.2007
James Smith Stockport Cou. Free 28.12.2007
Mohamed Sissoko Juventus £8,200,000 28.01.2008
Lee Peltier Yeovil Free* 31.01.2008


Youngsters bought by Rafa

Josh Mimms Rotherham United £50,000 16.06.2005
Antonio Barragan Sevilla £240,000 04.07.2005
Godwin Antwi Real Zaragoza Unknown 15.08.2005
Miki Roque Lleida Unknown 15.08.2005
Jack Hobbs Lincoln City £150,000* 18.08.2005
Besian Idrizaj LASK Linz £190,000* 22.08.2005
Paul Anderson Hull City Player Exchange* 01.01.2006
David Martin MK Dons £250,000* 12.01.2006
Nabil El Zhar St Etienne £200,000 21.08.2006
Astrit  Ajdarevic Falkenberg £750,000* 11.01.2007
Daniele Padelli Sampdoria On Loan* 12.01.2007
Jordy Brouwer Ajax Undisclosed* 24.01.2007
Francisco Durán  Malaga £66,000* 30.01.2007
Ronald Huth Tacuary FC Undisclosed 31.01.2007
Mikel San José Domínguez Athletic Bilbao £270,000 28.06.2007
Sebastian Leto Club Atlético Lanús £1,800,000 01.07.2007 
Emiliano Insúa Boca Juniors £1,300,000* 26.08.2007


Useful links

Liverpool results - Official website

Soccerbase transfer search engine - Search transfers by season and price range

what is this Harry Hindsight?  should have bought Ronaldo for 12, and not Morientes or Cisse.  Would have told Parry not to sell to Hicks.

Everything is easy looking back.  For every Torres there are 5 Morientes.  Gotta take a gamble.

If I were Benitez I wouldnt have been so bloody negative against Man City away, and be 2-0 up at the half.

what is this Harry Hindsight?  should have bought Ronaldo for 12, and not Morientes or Cisse.  Would have told Parry not to sell to Hicks.

Everything is easy looking back.  For every Torres there are 5 Morientes.  Gotta take a gamble.

If I were Benitez I wouldnt have been so bloody negative against Man City away, and be 2-0 up at the half.

If you haven't got anything to put into the discussion then why bother posting in the thread?

Obviously it's a lot easier looking back, I'm asking people with the benefit of hindsight and with the same money to spend what would they have done differently. People will have lots of different opinions as to who would have benefitted us more, and also how the money was spent. Opinion is split in the quality vs quantity debate, with Rafa himself having leaned more to the quantity side in the past. There is plenty up for discussion in this topic, if that's too much for you then just stay out of the thread, and if you're going to try & be flippant you should still try & be factually accurate, Ronaldo was bought by Utd in 2003 so Rafa couldn't have signed him.

Also why do you have to try & turn every post into an anti Rafa post? I noticed in the match thread on Tuesday you had to throw in a dig at Rafa rather than just being able to celebrate winning our biggest game of the season so far. I don't doubt you are genuinely a Liverpool fan, but you seem to have a mindset that would be better suited to following Everton.

what is this Harry Hindsight?  should have bought Ronaldo for 12, and not Morientes or Cisse.  Would have told Parry not to sell to Hicks.

Everything is easy looking back.  For every Torres there are 5 Morientes.  Gotta take a gamble.

If I were Benitez I wouldnt have been so bloody negative against Man City away, and be 2-0 up at the half.

Richo... why the name change?

Personally I feel Rafa has done well with the money spent, but not too well.

If I was him I would have broken the squad down, and like Arsenal probably slowly build the team back up. For example, I wouldn't have bought any players out of panic, Jermaine Pennant for example. What I would have done is spent more on quality and less on quantity which he can be guilty of.

That season he bought Craig Bellamy, Jermaine Pennant & Dirk Kuyt for a total of £27m. I'd of tried to spend £27m differently, like Daniel Alves who would have gone for £12m that summer.

Sometimes it's better to work from a smaller but more powerfull squad, a bit like Arsenal's was and in a way still is. I prefare a smaller squad than having a squad full of squad standard players. However we are now improving with Mascherano, Babel & Torres who were all signed recently. Lucas looks promising and so does Skrtel & Agger. These are positive signings, and our best two signings were Mascherano (£17m) and Torres (£21m) so it just goes to show you get what you pay for 90% of the time in my opinion.

That season he bought Craig Bellamy, Jermaine Pennant & Dirk Kuyt for a total of £27m. I'd of tried to spend £27m differently, like Daniel Alves who would have gone for £12m that summer.

Sometimes it's better to work from a smaller but more powerfull squad, a bit like Arsenal's was and in a way still is. I prefare a smaller squad than having a squad full of squad standard players. However we are now improving with Mascherano, Babel & Torres who were all signed recently. Lucas looks promising and so does Skrtel & Agger. These are positive signings, and our best two signings were Mascherano (£17m) and Torres (£21m) so it just goes to show you get what you pay for 90% of the time in my opinion.

A 'Smaller but more powerful squad like Arsenal' lacks stamina and therefore end up under-performing towards the end of the season.

I have gone through the list a couple of times, I noticed, there were quite a lot of players bought! but its hard to fault his effort; especially in these situations:

Craig Bellamy: Rafa Benitez saw ability and pace! which always troubled the opposition. Bellamy had speed and also scored about 7 goals in about 27 appearances. This is better than some players have had in years. Bellamy was however a haunted child with too many troubles. Truly the 'Nutter with the Putter' but definitely not an poor buy.

Jermaine Pennant: He has done well but we keep knocking this buy as poor. He has been effective in sme games and also off in others like everyone else in the squad.

AND

I kinda liked Louis Garcia and didn't want to see him go, but We got a great deal in 'El Nino'.

Its hard to fault his effort as he got rid of buys that were not suitable for the Liverpool side. IRWT

I've just been trying to work this out myself & it's a lot trickier than I first anticipated, there are a few players I would have signed instead but then you've got to balance the books by buying a cheaper option elsewhere. Ra Ra Rafa I agree about Alves, we missed the boat with that one as he'd cost twice as much now as the £12m we could have got him for but if we hadn't bought Kuyt, Bellamy & Pennant then we would have only had two strikers and either Gerrard or Garcia on the right. With the money left over who would you have bought instead to fill the positions?

Even with the benefit of hindsight it is very difficult to find players that could have been bought with the same budget, I've only found a handful of different signings I would have made on the same budget. I definitely wouldn't have signed Pellegrino, if we had kept Henchoz instead I think he would have been better backup to Hyypia & Carragher. I would have also gone for Anelka ahead of Morientes for an extra £700k, though TBH at the time if you'd asked me I would've probably picked Morientes like Rafa did. I would have also opted for Stilian Petrov ahead of Jermaine Pennant in 2006, whilst traditionally a central player he also played many times for Celtic on the right & would have offered more goals than Pennant has. He cost around the same price as Pennant (£200k less in fact) and I think he would have provided a better option.

Considering the fact that we probably wouldn't have needed to sell Anelka unlike Morientes, there would have been no need to sign Bellamy in 2006, and the £6m saved would have gone some way to funding the signing of Daniel Alves. I would have still signed Arbeloa, but kept him more as an option for the left and would have recouped some more money by selling Riise at that point. I reckon we could have got £7m for Riise at the time Arbeloa was signed, which should overall just about level the books.

Through selling Riise and not buying Morientes, Pennant or Bellamy we would have been left with an extra £26m in the kitty to spend on other players. The signings of Petrov, Alves & Anelka would have cost a combined total of £25.5m. There are obviously going to be better players out there than some of the ones Rafa has signed, but working with the same budget constraints there are only those few changes I would have made compared to what he actually did do.

Our squad now would be:

GK Reina
GK Itandje
LB Aurelio
LB Arbeloa
CB Carragher
CB Agger
CB Skrtel
CB Hyypia
RB Alves
RB Finnan
LM Babel
LM Kewell
CM Gerrard
CM Mascherano
CM Alonso
CM Lucas
RM Petrov
RM Benayoun
ST Torres
ST Anelka
ST Crouch
ST Kuyt

IMO this would be slightly stronger than the squad we currently had, but only slightly. When I started this topic I thought I'd be able to find quite a few different signings I would have made, but when I actually tried to do the maths I found it a lot trickier than I initially thought. Overall I'd say Rafa's pretty much done as well as he could with the money he had available, and as Ra Ra Rafa pointed out when he has spent big he's got it right, there isn't a lot I would change if we were given a chance to go back in time.

Going back to Solodee's answer to me,

Well you start off with a small but strong squad but you don't keep it small, you keep building onto it. Thats what Arsenal did better than last season, and they are still building - the reason why they have run out of gas.

I wouldn't say we were building as much as they were, more like already built obviously things didn't work out that well. I think Rafa will actually start building us in a similar way that Arsene has built Arsenal... but with the money!

This is such a complex thread.  I can't go in to specifics but I think that Benitez has actually spent reasonably well.  He has brought in some exceptional youth talent which is obviously overlooked - just look at our reserves.  We're always getting high hopes of reserve stars but some of these really do have the potential to play in our first team, no question.

This is such a complex thread.  I can't go in to specifics but I think that Benitez has actually spent reasonably well.  He has brought in some exceptional youth talent which is obviously overlooked - just look at our reserves.  We're always getting high hopes of reserve stars but some of these really do have the potential to play in our first team, no question.

But why doesn't Rafa play the youngsters more? Does he not trust them yet, or are they not good enough? If Rafa had an 18 year old Aguero would he play him often or leave him on the bench? If Nemeth is really that good then why isn't he playing games for the first team? Is it time for Rafa to show more faith to the youngsters?

Exactly as rafa has done but would have kept Lil Luis.

Wouldnt have bought any bigger players, we needed squad players, the idea of changing a team when you need new players isnt spending alot on big time players and no back up thats how you end up outside the top 4 as you run out of steam early.

We needed the players rafa bought really yes even the bad ones as it taught us things and some of them still played a part. Rafa has done things well and the main criticism from other fans is that rafa has had so and so much money of the time hes been our manager but they havent looked into how much money he got in each window and that is the way they use to ignore his work and take it as whatever the papers say is true.

Given sayy £50 million with 4 positions needing covering you buy 4 smaller players one for each position as opposed to 2 'world class' or near that, players as injuries will kill off your season as will fatigue. It is the art of building a squad with necessary depth and no one knows it better than rafa.

This is a beast of a thread this Eddie.

Without delving in and doing research, I'd say it all comes down to whether short term success is more important than long term success. It's fair to say you could possibly make a few more quality players for the first team and disregard the structure of the club if there was need for short term focus. But thankfully that wasn't the case.

There's no doubt in my mind that we were in a big crossroad when Benitez took over.

There was a heavy need for the burden upon Gerrard to be relaxed in midfield - we were becoming a very one man midfield side. In came Alonso, Hamman stayed and out went Murphy. A move that was worth the money for me because I think our midfield was leaning over to the fragile side near the end of Houlliers era. So that's one obvious example off the top of my head that short term fixings isn't a stranger to Rafa. And how good was signing Alonso.

But the way we've had a number of players brought in to build a future on under Rafa has been exciting and inspiring. And it's beginning to be more apparent these days. We're not any longer being told we've got the next Zidane waiting in the wings, instead a player like Plessis can come in, do a great job and not many people will know about it until he's gone back and played for the reserves again.

The quantity rather than quality thing will always bring frustration. But that's obviously not always down to the wishes of the manager. On the whole, I'm pretty comfortable with Rafa getting used to the Premiership the way he did. He brought a few players in that weren't up to the standard, but he didn't rip the first team apart. Slowly but surely he's kept trying to build on what good foundations we had with the resources available. But I think it speaks volumes how much he's had to rebuild in general. And this is why we've seen a few bargain buys in past, when I imagine he would have loved to get first choice targets.

I think on the whole, I wouldn't have done too much different. We seem on the right path in general.

I'd say another angle you could look at is not what players that have been brought in or sold, but how some players have been played out of position or not played at all when it could have influenced certain games? But my memeory is very poor. You only have to look at the posts in the Prediction League thread to see that.

If you haven't got anything to put into the discussion then why bother posting in the thread?

I see I have to be more explicit because people dont know how to read between the lines.  1st 2 sentences = Rafa (anyone) is above criticism or analysis  looking back from time perspective.  last sentence = his tactics may be a fairer way to play if you were rafa.

A post like this is bound to show Rafa in a bad light by those who dont understand football.  He is building something.  If you want to make an omelette you have to break some eggs.  Comments like "not buying Morientes, Pennant or Bellamy we would have been left with an extra £26m" and "The signings of Petrov, Alves & Anelka would have cost a combined total of £25.5m." is totally unfair dude.  If morientes stayed at Monaco and continued his form there, oh Rafa should have signed him.  Whose to say Petrov would have worked at Pool?  Man City took a gamble and it paid off.   Henry clearly one of the best Prem players so far.  But fairly rubbish for France.  Why?  Arse built their team to Henry strengths, France built around Zidane.  Certain players will play well in some teams, and fail in others.  To presume other clubs top players would automatically do the same for us is amateur.  Healy - top scorer ever in Euro qualifying, we should buy him.  What he cost?  1million?   Going back to League 1?  Ever wonder why?  Rafa needs to buy for his system.  He keeps playing Kyte, and thinks he is doing a good job.  Is he blind or just has different criteria of what a good job is, and thats why he is in the Champ League SF and I play Monday night football?

There is a big difference between top teams and 2nd tier teams that maybe people dont understand.  Bale at spurs will be a super player.  10mill prob a steal.  But liverpool could never have bought him.  A league 1 player cannot start playing at the top of the Prem.  A lesser club can blood these players in and see if they are good enough.  They can prove themselves and then look good enough for a top team.  A player like Hutton who had shown his stuff in the Champs league is a different story.  A top team is better off letting the smaller teams buy a lot of players and buy the best at much higher prices.  Why dont you say Liv should buy Samaras?  Someone at sometime thought he was worth more than Petrov.  Personally I thought Veron for 30 was great business.  Pure class player.  Glad it didnt work out though.   

This type of thread creates a magical new stick to beat Rafa with from people who dont understand football.  It is totally unfair and undermining of support.

Also why do you have to try & turn every post into an anti Rafa post?

Although I have never won the European cup, and dont see players train every day - Rafa frustrates the hell out of me.  At times he shows himself to be the top manager in Europe, and at times makes decisions that beggar belief.  While I cannot criticize him bec Im not the one making decisions, If someone could explain some of the things he does it would be appreciated.  I just feel that if he makes a few simple decisions we would go from 4th to 1st.  But he clearly knows what he is doing, and continues to defy logic, yet we continue in 4th.  Very frustrating and if someone could explain.....

2 wingers and 2 full backs.  move babbel inside.  $10m each should be right quality, and sell some players for 15.... 25 net spend should give good enough team to win it next year.....Gerard only has a few seasons at his peak left.

I see I have to be more explicit because people dont know how to read between the lines.

what is this Harry Hindsight?  should have bought Ronaldo for 12, and not Morientes or Cisse.  Would have told Parry not to sell to Hicks.

Everything is easy looking back.  For every Torres there are 5 Morientes.  Gotta take a gamble.

If I were Benitez I wouldnt have been so bloody negative against Man City away, and be 2-0 up at the half.

Yes, because there was so much to read between the lines in your initial post wasn't there?

This type of thread creates a magical new stick to beat Rafa with from people who dont understand football.  It is totally unfair and undermining of support.

How the hell does it you tit? This thread creates discussion, something which is what we're supposed to be doing on a forum. Anyone who says that any manager has got absolutely every decision correct is either thick as sh*t or just lying, everyone makes mistakes, and the aim of this thread is to identify exactly what you think Rafa's mistakes have been and what you would have done differently. There are a number of varying points of view on a number of players in our squad, the two in particular that seem to have the forum split down the middle being Kuyt & Pennant. What I'm asking is to the people that think we shouldn't have signed one or both of them, who would you have gone for instead, and to stop people just suggesting unrealistic signings (I'm sure we would have all signed Joaquin, Simao or Quaresma ahead of Pennant) I've asked them to work with they players available on the market at the time and the same financial constraints that were placed on Rafa.

Comments like "not buying Morientes, Pennant or Bellamy we would have been left with an extra £26m" and "The signings of Petrov, Alves & Anelka would have cost a combined total of £25.5m." is totally unfair dude.

How the hell is it unfair? How can something that is fact be judged as unfair? It is a fact that those players cost us £26m, and it is a fact that at the same time the players I suggestes buying moved clubs for a combined fee of £25.5m.

Whose to say Petrov would have worked at Pool?  Man City took a gamble and it paid off.   Henry clearly one of the best Prem players so far.  But fairly rubbish for France.  Why?  Arse built their team to Henry strengths, France built around Zidane.  Certain players will play well in some teams, and fail in others.  To presume other clubs top players would automatically do the same for us is amateur.  Healy - top scorer ever in Euro qualifying, we should buy him.  What he cost?  1million?   Going back to League 1?  Ever wonder why?  Rafa needs to buy for his system.  He keeps playing Kyte, and thinks he is doing a good job.  Is he blind or just has different criteria of what a good job is, and thats why he is in the Champ League SF and I play Monday night football?

Ok now you're just stating the obvious, and it has no bearing on this thread. Of course different players will perform better in different systems, the whole point of this thread is that you are supposed to use your judgement and work out who you feel could have benefitted our system more than the players we actually did sign.

Redhotrobbie, you just seem intent on causing arguments wherever you go on this forum an yet again you have done it in this thread. Thank you to everyone else who gave an on topic reply (yes even you Ra Ra Rafa), but there's always going to be one tit about who will try & ruin the discussion.

Just one final point before I go, how dare you accuse me of trying to undermine support for Rafa? You must be even thicker than I gave you credit for if you think that's the case. I suggest you go and have a look back over the topics when people were calling for his head before you start throwing accusationos like that in my direction. What was your response to Tuesdays victory again?

"I was always confident I was going to score from the spot even though that was one of my worst performances in a Liverpool shirt." says gerrard. 

Bring it on, but where was he playing?  left wing?  I blame Benitez for his self proclaimed poor performance - by playing him ooot of position.

So while the rest of us were over the moon that we got into yet another Champions League semi under Rafa, singing and dancing until the small hours, you decided you were going to post this instead. Take a good hard look at your posts, and think twice in future before accusing other people of undermining Rafa.

I haven't really got enough time atm to post in this thread (which is a great idea Eddie) I'm away at the moment, hence the reason I have been browsing the boards and not posting to much, I'll give a proper answere when I get back!

Yes, because there was so much to read between the lines in your initial post wasn't there?

How the hell does it you tit? This thread creates discussion, something which is what we're supposed to be doing on a forum. Anyone who says that any manager has got absolutely every decision correct is either thick as sh*t or just lying, everyone makes mistakes, and the aim of this thread is to identify exactly what you think Rafa's mistakes have been and what you would have done differently. There are a number of varying points of view on a number of players in our squad, the two in particular that seem to have the forum split down the middle being Kuyt & Pennant. What I'm asking is to the people that think we shouldn't have signed one or both of them, who would you have gone for instead, and to stop people just suggesting unrealistic signings (I'm sure we would have all signed Joaquin, Simao or Quaresma ahead of Pennant) I've asked them to work with they players available on the market at the time and the same financial constraints that were placed on Rafa.

How the hell is it unfair? How can something that is fact be judged as unfair? It is a fact that those players cost us £26m, and it is a fact that at the same time the players I suggestes buying moved clubs for a combined fee of £25.5m.

Ok now you're just stating the obvious, and it has no bearing on this thread. Of course different players will perform better in different systems, the whole point of this thread is that you are supposed to use your judgement and work out who you feel could have benefitted our system more than the players we actually did sign.

Redhotrobbie, you just seem intent on causing arguments wherever you go on this forum an yet again you have done it in this thread. Thank you to everyone else who gave an on topic reply (yes even you Ra Ra Rafa), but there's always going to be one tit about who will try & ruin the discussion.

Just one final point before I go, how dare you accuse me of trying to undermine support for Rafa? You must be even thicker than I gave you credit for if you think that's the case. I suggest you go and have a look back over the topics when people were calling for his head before you start throwing accusationos like that in my direction. What was your response to Tuesdays victory again?

So while the rest of us were over the moon that we got into yet another Champions League semi under Rafa, singing and dancing until the small hours, you decided you were going to post this instead. Take a good hard look at your posts, and think twice in future before accusing other people of undermining Rafa.

Bloody hell. Were you a debating fanatic in school Ed? I think politics is your calling in life mate.

Onto the discussion, you have caught me out here with a complex topic which i have no idea to answer to. So ill leave this in saying we can all blame Rafa in buying this player or that but look deeply into it and you will find Rafa trying to turn something out of nothing. He could have simply bought players on form and we will be just another Newcastle in the Prem. and struggling but he took his chances and brought us Xabi, Pepe, Arby and co. with limited funds who are apart of the first squad and players who are renounded over the world. No need for those who are going to post, 'Why Pennant and Bellamy when Quaresma and Anelka were available' or whatever because Rafa has done a damn fine job with his funds and the situation he has been put in.

Tahhh.

Clearly a reply is pointless, as you never read what I write, but I carry on with hope in my heart.  All the questions you asked were answered.  Again?  It is unfair to use hindsight to critic.  Few were complaining when we signed Morientes, and few few saying we should have gone for Petrov, when we went to City.  Now to look back and say you should have done this?  Rafa used his judgement to bring in Morientes and not Petrov.  I dont understand how a "If you were rafa" thread doesnt translate into - that was a mistake.  I would have done it like this.  Thats what the title says.  If you were Rafa.  Is anyone going to say - since my only management experience is playing "Football Manager", we prob would have been relegated years ago because I dont know what Im doing.  No. Lets sit and take shots.  Rafa has seen Anelka play.  He knows whats up.  This forum allows people to critic him on this as well - a new point to devalue his work, no one ele has thought of.

I felt Gerard had a poor game V Arse, and we were lacking because of it.  And there were no replies to my Bring it on, so noone was too upset by it then.  Implicit agreement?  Apathy?  Dont know.  I still hold its fair criticism of which I have seen no replies.  Opposed to unfair criticism.

If you want to know my fairly irrelevant opinion on Rafa - there is noone better to take over so there is no point in sacking him.  The ship is in safe hands under him, but I dont think we will win the Prem, unless he changes some things in his play.  And the greatest tragedy would see Gerard not win the Prem at Liv.  But he doesnt deserve this type of attack.

I haven't at any point said that this thread was aimed at criticising Rafa, in fact the whole thread pretty much points to the fact that Rafa has done as well as he possibly could have with the funds he's had available. You say I never read what you write but I could well accuse you of the same thing. I'll try & break it down in the simplest language possible. Not everyone agrees with every signing Rafa has made, this is clear from the posts that have been made in various other threads. The point of this thread is to ask people if they didn't agree with a certain signing who would they have got instead with the same budget? I'm not asking people to use hindsight to critic as you suggested, I am asking people to use hindsight to assess what they feel could have been a better option, and to discuss peoples opinions on it.

It is a thread that takes a lot of thought, maybe that is why the concept is beyond you. Anyone that knows me would know that the last thing I'd do is start a thread with the intent of taking shots at Rafa, and this thread doesn't do that. I'm not going to explain the point of the thread a third time to you, if you still don't see the point of it then don't post in it, simple as that.

Obviously Rafa hasn't made the perfect signings but everybody must agree that he has done extremely well with the little money he has been allowed (80mil net spend over 4 seasons is very little compared to Utd and Chelsea) Just think of some of the players he brought in, Reina, Arbeloa, Agger, Skrtel, Garcia, Alonso, Mascherano, Sissoko, Torres. All of these success stories, also when he has spent on players that have now left most of the time he has recouped the cost.

Signings that come to my mind that have not worked out are Pennant, Morientes, Kuyt and Crouch. I'm not going to get into detail on players that were bought for very little money. But if you consider these 4, they had great reputations before coming and I would be sure that most people expected more from them when they signed. Also, arguably the only flop was Morientes, I myself was raving about his signing and thought that we had a real gem on our hands, unfortunately it didnt work out.

The only real changes I would have made with hindsight is perhaps Quaresma instead of Pennant and Morientes and Anelka instead of Kuyt. But we must bear in mind that any suggestions we make here are just as likely to fail as any other so-called "flops" Rafa has bought.

To sum up I think we should just be happy we have a manager that knows his stuff in the transfer market and not a Mourinho that buys and buys until he gets it right

Hindsight is very very easy and looking at the fact’s in Benitez’s case there isn’t much to really make influential changes.  I would say that I wouldn’t have purchase Morientes looking back and purchase Anelka.  Maybe instead of Kuyt, to sign Berbatov, but the interesting thing there was that Martin Jol was desperately after Kuyt too.  The Morientis type will always pop up and when available are very attractive i.e maybe Mancini is an example, Kewell was another. 

There was one player that I was fuming about at the time of the transfer and it was Crouch.  Now for 7m even Fergy wouldn't say no, just for his third or fourth striker, I don’t think anyone bar maybe Arsenal would not consider him looking back.  So to be fair, I just have to stand and appreciate his excellent work in the transfer market.

If i were Rafa i would ask for Mouriniho as my assisant , haha that would go down with the press and Tell the two F***ing Yanks hes below him

nice one! Or if not an assistant a punch bag

Personally I feel Rafa has done well with the money spent, but not too well.

If I was him I would have broken the squad down, and like Arsenal probably slowly build the team back up. For example, I wouldn't have bought any players out of panic, Jermaine Pennant for example. What I would have done is spent more on quality and less on quantity which he can be guilty of.

That season he bought Craig Bellamy, Jermaine Pennant & Dirk Kuyt for a total of £27m. I'd of tried to spend £27m differently, like Daniel Alves who would have gone for £12m that summer.

Sometimes it's better to work from a smaller but more powerfull squad, a bit like Arsenal's was and in a way still is. I prefare a smaller squad than having a squad full of squad standard players. However we are now improving with Mascherano, Babel & Torres who were all signed recently. Lucas looks promising and so does Skrtel & Agger. These are positive signings, and our best two signings were Mascherano (£17m) and Torres (£21m) so it just goes to show you get what you pay for 90% of the time in my opinion.

I'm sorry mate but your contradicting yourself. In a post about Gareth Barry you said this.

"This is when I do have my doubts about Rafa. I don't think he's anything special when it comes to the transfer market, especially after being interested in certain players who are certainly not top four standard.

Jermaine Pennant
Peter Crouch
Craig Bellamy"

You either think he has spent his money well or that he hasn't - not in between.

nice one! Or if not an assistant a punch bag

sounds even better