Rafa Bentitez was of the opinion that Gareth Barry was the missing link of Liverpool winning the title. We made a bid, and Aston Villa said that we did not meet the valuation. I can see a similarity with Arsenal bid for Luis Suarez.. totally below the market value. Wenger what are you smoking?.
I agree with Rafa, Barry was who we needed. Especially after Alonso left. Arsenal dont just need Suarez though. Though he is the missing link from their attack. They need a cb and gk.
hahaha, Benitez wanted to sell Alonso & replace him with Barry! Not merely replace the departing Alonso, as he didn't move until the summer following the initial bid for Barry.
Bidding for Barry made Alonso sat up. His form improved drastically the following season. That was when Liverpool really challenged United for the title. We lost two games that season. Lost to Tottenham and Middlesbrough.
The move did make some sense at the time. The previous season Alonso was on the bench a lot and not performing at a world class level. Mascerano and Gerrard were in the team ahead of him. Barry was performing brilliantly in midfield for Villa and England (with Gerrard) with great passing, control, leadership, clinical forward passes, goals and assists. Juve were offering £18m for Alonso. £18m for our back up midfielder. Barry was available for less than that but Rafa did not have the funds for the deal with out selling.
bollox to this... barry at the time was slow... he only got slower. the real facts of it are not barry and mr benetiz knows it. alonso played great. We have NO options up front and frankly robbie keane kept us in it with a few goals despite the treatment before christmas. once he was sold and torres went injured AGAIN... we have only babel up top and we threw in a group of 4 games including losing to middlesboro who were relegated 0-2... wigan draw and theres the 4 points we ended up behind. in short right when utd picked up form and zoomed ahead we lost options up front and it all went away.
Alonso was great in his last season, but he'd had a couple of relatively mediocre ones beforehand. I thought we went for Barry partly because we wanted to bump up the English contingent?
Here we go again. No, he didn't. He wanted Barry without losing Alonso. He saw Keane and Barry as a left sided partnership, sorta like Barry and Bellamy at City. If he could only have one he wanted barry; he was given keane and told to sell to buy Barry. Alonso had been injured for the best part of a season, come back and got injured again so I dunno where all this genius stuff comes from. He raised his game when he knew he had a chance to go to his boyhood club. And he did go. He didn't have to. But loyalty, eh? Barry had replaced Lampard in the England line-up and results turned around. The Gerrard/Barry partnership worked. Barry's not as good a player as Lampard but with Gerrard he was far superior. What manager wouldn't be interested in that? Barry also scored twice as many goals as Alonso. A 40-yard pass to the toe bloke at the corner flag or a bundled-in goal - which is preferable? There were good reasons for buying Barry and bad reasons why we didn't.
That's utter revisionist ****e mate. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...after-feeling-unwanted-by-Rafael-Benitez.html "At the end of that [2008] season, speaking to Rafa, he told me the situation and that he wanted to sign other players and I could be one of the replacements," said the Real midfielder. "If an offer would have come, probably I would have been sold. "That's when I told myself that the situation had changed - from being a very important player to being one of those who can be sold to get funds to sign other players.
Is this a new thread or one from years ago? Rafas biggest **** up this one. Barry is cack....yeah yeah he's won titles with City. Nicky Butt won titles with Utd. Still ****e though
Arsenal fans are already making tattoo of Suarez...and placing order for his shirt. I wonder if it is going to be number 7..?
