I copied and pasted this from another forum, but I think it makes interesting reading. Since KK took over: INS: Carrol £35m Suarez £22m Henderson £16m Downing £20m Adam £8m Enrique £6m Coates £7m Bellamy FREE Doni FREE TOTAL SPENT £114m OUTS:Torres £50m Babel £7m Mereiles £15m Ngog £4m Konchesky £1.5m (this isn’t including undisclosed fees which probably raised an extra £4m+) TOTAL RECEIVED £77m NET SPEND £37m Now I think you will agree after totally reshaping our squad £37m isn’t alot of money considering such a huge rebuilding jhob was needed. To show what a good job FSG/Comolli/KK have done: Suarez v Torres SUAREZ Babel v Carroll CARROLL Enrique v Konchesky ENRIQUE Coates v Kyriakos COATES Bellamy v Ngog BELLAMY Doni v B.Jones DONI Mereiles v Henderson (jury is out on this one. mereiles is the more established of the 2 but i believe Henderson has the potential to be better than him) Add Charlie Adam and the extremely impressive Downing into the mix and thats 8 positions significantly strengthened for £37m. And after trimming the wage bill considerably by getting rid of all the dead wood its been an extremely successful window!
I never thought of it like that, Liverpool have strengthened their squad and reduced their wage bill for less than Sergio Aguero. Now that is impressive. The squad itself looks stronger than it has even done recently, even though it doesn't currently have the numbers it once did. Then again at one time it had far too many that weren't of any use. All the current squad members are useful. I remember Rafa once having a squad of 33 and only 16 of them were useful. Kenny has approximately 22 players, 21 of them are useful. The one that isn't is 3rd choice keeper Brad Jones. How many clubs can say that?
I agree Bozz. Like I said, these aren't my words, I just thought they raised a few interesting topics!
Bozz. Sebastian Coates has been a senior international since he was 18 years old. On the otherhand he hasn't played in a top league as of yet and will have to be given a bit of time to adjust. If he takes to it like a duck to water, we can then make a decision, but we have to see how he adjusts.
I wonder how Coates will be introduced? If Kelly and Jonno are still doubtful for the Stoke game then he may make a sub appearance.
Equally if you had to choose between a 32 yr old, who may get in the Greek national team, or a 20 year old, who's just won young player of the tournament, playing for the team which won the Copa America, which would you choose?
Some reports suggest Glen Johnson is available for selection against Stoke. Martin Kelly suffered a minor hamstring injury, he may not feature against Stoke, but he will be available for selection for the Spurs game.
I think we could easily start with Coates, look at Flanno and Robbo last season when they were thrown into the deep end. Coates has already identified that he will have to up his game in this league and I think he is more than capable of hitting the ground running.
Good post from the OP, we have brought a lot of money in and reduced the wage bill. Players in: Jordan Henderson (Sunderland, £16m*), Charlie Adam (Blackpool, £8.5 million), Alexander Doni (Roma, free), Stewart Downing (Aston Villa, £20m*), Jose Enrique (Newcastle, £6m*), Sebastian Coates (Nacional, undisclosed), Villyan Bijev (California Odyssey, undisclosed), Craig Bellamy (Manchester City, undisclosed). Players out: Paul Konchesky (Leicester, £1.5m*), Peter Gulacsi (Hull, season loan), Milan Jovanovic (Anderlecht, undisclosed), Tom Ince (Blackpool, undisclosed), Daniel Ayala (Norwich, £800,000*), Sotirios Kyrgiakos (Wolfsburg, undisclosed), Daniel Pacheco (Atletico Madrid, season loan), Alberto Aquilani (AC Milan, season loan), Emiliano Insua (Sporting Lisbon, undisclosed), Joe Cole (Lille, loan), Christian Poulsen (Evian, undisclosed), Villyan Bijev (Fortuna Dusseldorf, loan), David Ngog (Bolton, undisclosed), Raul Meireles (Chelsea, £12m*).
Side me with the Coates skeptics. I fully expect him to be good- I fully expect him to be better than Soto. HOWEVER, until I've seen him wearing a red shirt I'll reserve judgement. As for the other comparisons- there were none for Downing- who is probably closest to being a replacement for Cole. Downing fits the position better- and judging on their performances in red- Downing is by far the better. (or Jove - again Downing is much better). As for Adam, he isn't really a match- but I guess of the people going out you have to say he is closest in position to that of Poulsen. This is a HUUUUUGE improvement.
Lucas Milk. Downing is a replacement for Cole? Stewart Downing is a replacement for nobody. Some people it seems on these forums don't know the difference between ''additions'' which Stewart Downing obviously is, and ''replacements'', which Craig Bellamy obviously is. An addition is adding something we didn't have, and we didn't have natural width and thats something that Stewart Downing provides, and Joe Cole never did. Jose Enrique could come under the list of replacements, but is more valuable than that as he solved a problem position. Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson come under the heading of additions as they provide something that we were lacking. Sebastian Coates could possibly come under both as he is both an addition and a replacement.
19 players out, wage bill slashed by £30M but squad strengthened. That's pretty clever. Plus 25M warrior shirt deal and no more 40M debt repayments to make either compared with last year under H&G. We are so much better off.
Theres two types of ''Depth''. Theres depth in numbers and there is depth in players. We had depth in numbers for a long time, but we had 33 players, but only 16 were useful. Now we have 22 players 21 of them are useful, the exception being Brad Jones, which doesn't really matter as he's a 3rd choice keeper. I reckon between now and next August we will add to that and have 25 useful players and have real depth in players.
No he hasn't. His only caps were at this year's Copa America. He was first called up aged 18, but didn't actually step onto the pitch.
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