OT9: Another "Other" Thread

[Twenty26Six]

Blah.

[liverbird]

Blah. can Zippy be far behind?

[el-capitano]

Another premature threadulation- maybe you should see a doctor 26! ;)

[liverbird]

He just did it so I wouldn't tell the Chelski visitor that it is preposterous to talk about SARN and the squad at ManUre without looking at the amount of cash spent over the years. And that it is not the equivalent of Liverpool's spending. Now spending alone isn't the answer but Chelski is living testimony that combined with a smart manager it can win you things. Too bad for them he's now in Milan:D.

[Samarkand]

Imagine the howls if had been Benitez who had shelled out £35M for Nani and Anderson.

[usscouse]

He just did it so I wouldn't tell the Chelski visitor that it is preposterous to talk about SARN and the squad at ManUre without looking at the amount of cash spent over the years. And that it is not the equivalent of Liverpool's spending. Now spending alone isn't the answer but Chelski is living testimony that combined with a smart manager it can win you things. Too bad for them he's now in Milan:D.The last two paras of his last post just told us that he doesn't understand football and he only came to toss in some shit.

Basic translation...:)

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

Imagine the howls if had been Benitez who had shelled out £35M for Nani and Anderson.

Rafa gets more shit for paying 17 M for Babel and Lucas.

It's unreal.

[AussieLFCfan]

Rafa gets more shit for paying 17 M for Babel and Lucas.

It's unreal.

Are Nani and Anderson playing twice as bad as Lucas and Babel?

[Grinners89]

Blah.

Are you learning the alphabet in school this week?

[liverbird]

Are Nani and Anderson playing twice as bad as Lucas and Babel?

:confused: Hunh:confused:

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

Are Nani and Anderson playing twice as bad as Lucas and Babel?

I wouldn't say that Anderson is making that much more of an impact than Lucas. He has 36 appearances for United, and hasn't scored any goals. More appearances than Lucas with less goals. Lucas has scored 1. :D

And Nani isn't that great either, considering when they have a fully fit team, Ferguson usually chooses Giggs over him.

[billyireland]

Going to chime in from the last thread:

1 Youve got better depth than us becouse you have more money.I won't deny this as there are players who we have spent a fair bit on in the last few seasons - players like Nani and Anderson cost us a lot and in the long term, while I think Anderson will be worth it... I just can't be as sure at all of Nani. Ferguson also has made some poor buys in recent years. For starters, I don't think Berbatov was the striker we needed (actually, Torres is the exact perfect striker for our system, as much as it pains me to say it). Hargreaves was an awful buy due to his injuries, and even were they not an issue we needed somebody more technically skilled anyway (De Rossi was the dream signing here, imo). However, some of these 'big impact players' were bought at low amounts relative to their worth in the here and now.

It is unfair to simply put this down completely to money though. For one thing, Benitez as of the end of the summer had spent more (net) than Ferguson on transfers as of the start of this season, iirc. This was discussed at reasonable length between myself and revx (iirc) during the usmmer and some distinctions were made over the differences in making three £7mn signings vs. one £21mn signing. However, for some of the big name signings we have made in recent years it has to be remembered that a lot of the squad was bought at what has to be considered value for money, all things considered, and a lot of the depth in our squad was developed and worked on by us over the past few seasons.

Van der Sar cost us £2mn, Park (who has been incredible this season, he can do everything but score) £4mn, Vidic was £7mn, Evra another £4mn, and Tevez if we don't buy him was £6-8mn for the two seasons (his vital goals were worth it).

Fletcher, Evans, O'Shea, Neville, Brown, Giggs & Scholes are of course all youth products. Some of them might be youth products from a long, long time ago but all of these players have played from decent to fantastic for us this season, Neville being the only liability for us out of that bunch this year.

We even have several younger, more peripheral players who are either more youth products (Gibson, Welbeck) or bought in for next-to-nothing (Possebon, Rafael) who have had to play due to a mix of injuries/suspensions (which we have had a lot of during this clean-sheet run) and who have not slowed us down enough to cost us any points. In fact, all of these players have excelled on occasions and contributed to us winning games as well.

That is a total of of 16 players, 12 of whom have played considerable time this season and another 4 who have impressed in some of their first chances with the senior squad, for a grand total of roughly £25mn. I'm not trying to be snide here - and am well aware that Ferguson made some dodgy signings especially earlier in the decade - but there are a wide ranger of Benitez purchases that you could combine and come up with similar money spent, but far far less quality on the pitch. A good number of those players are still at your club (although Benitez has proved fairly efficient at cutting the slack lately), and in my opinion is a big contributing factor to the media heat Benitez gets compared to Ferguson. There is a difference in the money, but there is also a difference in how it is being spent too.

2 so far youve gotten away with putting out some weak sides becouse of the big impact players that remain in play, esp ronaldo ferdinand vidic and berbatov.You could also argue that we have gotten away with the rotation due to our defensive record. Since th loss to Arsenal in November, all we have needed to win a game is a scrappy, bobbling-over-the-line goal or a single moment of magic because we simply haven't conceeded. We have done this with Neville (more or less past it), Rafael (still has SO MUCH to learn defensively that it's a bit worrying), Brown (who has been injured for most of it), Ferdinand (again, injured a lot), Evra (injured and suspended for 8 games of the defensive streak), John O'Shea (he's hardly Baresi now is he? :)), Jonny Evans (a 20 year old youth product), and the only two constants being Vidic & van der Sar. To simply put our league record down to big impact players when it is so glaringly obvious that our defensive setup as a whole - in which I think new asst manager Mike Phelan has played an understated part - has been so magnificent and done far more than any single attacking player (or the attacking unit as a whole) in getting us right back in the mix.

3 sooner or later your going to get caught out doing this.

4 benitez and ferguson are both rotaters but the media castigates rafa and hails fergie. I also should point out that these two are directly related. We all know the media are a fickle (especially the footballing media in England due to the baffling insistence of so many of the general public when it comes to reading - and believing - the tabloids), so they rarely look beyond the actual scoreline for the actual performance, and fall back on the safe bets.

About 3-4 years ago there were calls all around that very same media to sack Ferguson who had lost the plot, and get rid of the likes of Giggs because they were past it. When Ferguon called Scholes' return from that eye injury similar to a 'new signing' he was mocked from all corners, and when van Nistlerooy was sold we were written off before the next season even started (despite the fact we played great right before we let him go, with Saha starting instead). The team were falling apart apparently, players like Brown, Fletcher and O'Shea were midtable squaddies at best, Ronaldo was a 'one-trick pony circus clown' with no end product (remember that little gem? :)) and new signings like Park & Evra were derided by many before even stepping foot on the pitch since they were not physically up to the Premiership and were not the types of signings we needed to be making if we wanted to get back in contention with Chelsea for the league. All of these points were circulated ad nauseum around the media from about 2004-2006, over and over and over again. All of them have since been proven completely wrong, and not the media has conveniently forgotten pretty much all of them. The media are by-and-large, fickle and clueless knee-jerk reactionists, so there's best off little weight being put in what they say. :)

[billyireland]

And Nani isn't that great either, considering when they have a fully fit team, Ferguson usually chooses Giggs over him.That would make sense, given that Giggs has probably been our best player this year after Vidic and maybe VDS ;). I will agree though, that Nani has to impress more and contribute a lot more over the 90 minutes, rather than a wonder-strike or inch-perfect cross/corner or two, and little to nothing else. Really just wanted to point out how well Giggs has been playing more than anything else. :o

[Grinners89]

:confused: Hunh:confused:

I think he meant to say are Nani and Anderson playing twice as good as Babel and Lucas...and no, they are not.

[burning247]

I think he meant to say are Nani and Anderson playing twice as good as Babel and Lucas...and no, they are not.

Maybe not twice as well but they definitely aren't sucking the the degree that Lucas and Babel are.

[Grinners89]

I did this recently for Liverpool and Chelsea and our squad seemed fairly even with Chelsea's. Compared with Man Utd's squad, there is no position that we have more depth at...even at CB, probably our strongest position, Man Utd have Ferdinand, Vidic, Evans, O'Shea, Brown and Neville compared to Carra, Skrtel, Agger and Hyypia.

Both teams have a very good average squad age due to a fairly good balance of experience and youth. However, given that Hyypia, Carra, Gerrard, Alonso and Reina are Liverpool's most experienced EPL players...that is one major advantage that the current Man Utd squad has over ours. Many of Man Utd's players have been in England for many seasons and their experience is invaluable to any team.


Liverpool - Man Utd
Reina (26) - van der Sar (38)
Cavalieri (26) - Foster (25)
Arbeloa (26) - G.Neville (33)
Degen (25) - Rafael (18)
Aurelio (29) - Evra (27)
Dossena (27) - O'Shea (27)
Insua (20) - Fabio (18)
Carragher (31) - Ferdinand (30)
Skrtel (24) - Vidic (27)
Agger (24) - Evans (21)
Hyypia (35) - Brown (29)
Masch (24) - Fletcher (25)
Alonso (27) - Carrick (27)
Lucas (22) - Scholes (34)
Plessis (20) - Hargreaves (28)
Spearing (19) - Anderson (20)
_________ - Possebon (20)
_________ - Gibson (21)
Kuyt (28) - Ronaldo (24)
Riera (26) - Giggs (35)
Benayoun (28) - Park (27)
Babel (22) - Nani (22)
El Zhar (22) - Tosic (21)
Gerrard (28) - Rooney (23)
Torres (24) - Berbatov (28)
Ngog (19) - Tevez (25)
_________ - Welbeck (18)


Liverpool's average 1st team squad age is: 25.35
15 players aged 24-29.
2 players 30+.
6 players under 24.

Man Utd's average 1st team squad age is: 25.60
12 players aged 24-29.
5 players 30+.
10 players under 24.


Another point is that Man Utd can afford to have Nani, Anderson, Tosic, Hargreaves and Tevez as players that are probably regarded as not in their first XI by Ferguson. These players' total values, total to just under 100 million pounds. Compare that with Babel, Lucas, El Zhar, Plessis and Ngog who's values total under 25 million pounds. On top of this, Man Utd have more depth in CM with Possebon and Gibson and up front with Welbeck.


BillyIreland, you do make some very good points about your defensive injuries this season, however the amount of defensive and midfield cover that your team has means that it isnt such a big deal. Defensive positions are also easier to cover than attacking positions as it is easier to teach younger defenders the team defensive tactical guidelines than teaching attacking players tactics on attacking and defensive parts of the game.

And while many of both Rafa's and Ferguson's very good value signings (Agger, Skrtel, Arbeloa, Riera, Park, van der Sar, Vidic, Evra etc) barely get mentioned as good pieces of business...Rafa's poorer signings have been getting mentioned a lot more than Fergusons in the last 5 years that Rafa has been at Liverpool.

[Grinners89]

Maybe not twice as well but they definitely aren't sucking the the degree that Lucas and Babel are.

You obviously havent seen Nani play this season...even Babel has produced more consistent displays over 90 minutes than Nani, who's disappearing acts are amazing. Granted, he might get onto a highlight reel against the 17th placed Championship side or a relegation threatened EPL side but that doesnt mark a very credible performance. Football is more than just highlight reels...especially when for 90% of a match, a player will be without the ball.

Its kinda sad that we're comparing which player has been least shit this season...all four have had poorer 2nd seasons in England compared to the 07-08 season. Anderson and Lucas are probably the two that so far look the closest to stepping up a tier in the league and improving their consistency and performances.

[liverbird]

Maybe not twice as well but they definitely aren't sucking the the degree that Lucas and Babel are.

I think Lucas and Babel have played and are playing better than the other two

[burning247]

ok ok, I mainly focus on Maure losing when I watch them....not Anderson and Pu-Nani. My bad.

[Samarkand]

I really don't buy into the idea of media bias, but that's not to say that it doesn't exist. Nevertheless, I think, in this instance, the lack of scrutiny given to Nani and Anderson is a dereliction of duty.

All the Orcs that inhabit the bowels of Old Trafford, when asked, will claim that Nani and Anderson are young/new/work-in-progress etc. and that it's too early to judge. Yet these same Orcs are the first to howl like monkeys in the peanut gallery about Babel and Lucas being a waste of money. And the media has pretty much followed that line.

Take a look at how badly Anderson was exposed at Anfield, when Demento had to take off Carrick and replaced him with Giggs, leaving Anderson up against Alonso and Mascherano. Perhaps only Roy Keane or Claude Makelele could have made an effort in that situation to be fair, but nevertheless Anderson was woeful that day.

£35M for Nani and Anderson still has a smell of a Veron-type transfer and it has yet to be called.