In the past we have overlooked some players, hoping that they are not going to make the grade at Anfield. For an example, every top club overlooked Gareth Bale apart from Tottenham, even Sir Alex Ferguson regretted not to have bought him from Southampton. Now every club would like to have Bale in their teams especially those who can pay the price. Andy Cole, Bentake, Sturridge are also such type of players. My question: What makes us think that players are not going to make it.?
hindsight is a wonderful thing lol. apparently we thought Ronaldo was asking for too much for someone who was young and unproven, see that would go down as a mistake, but then if he had turned out ****e utd would have ****ed up, its a gamble, some pay off some don't.
I just look them up on youtube. It's really the scouts at Anfield who decide whether or not a player is worthy of buying as they provide match reports. It's always a gamble though.
overlooked? nah.... thats a bad way of looking at bale. look at how much he was bought for by spurs. 5mil initially and rising to 10.... thats not cheap. It aint not going to make it it's finding the right guy at the right price for an academy slot. bale frankly was a left full that was way to expensive who's not a hard running mule kicker. 86mil? no chance. what makes us pick coutinho and not someone else... its all down to scouting, availability, price, and a bit of luck and no small it of application from the player.
I remember Ronaldo went to United at the same time as a player called Reyes went to Arsenal for the same (or very similar) price. At the beginning there was a lot of jeering and mickey taking from the Arsenal fans on how Reyes was much better and how United had wasted so many millions on a dud. Now who is laughing and Reyes who? This is where the scouts and the talent spotters play a key role. Also the depth of your pockets too. City and Chelsea can afford to make mistakes. Duds can just be discarded without the team suffering long term consequences. Liverpool is one example where expensive mistakes like Carroll and Downing did long term damage. For me, Sturridge is a very good example of someone Chelsea should never have let go. Now they miss him. Why sell Sturridge and play Torres? it just does not make sense.
Another thing to remember is that Bale was a left back when Spurs bought him and he wasn't far off being offloaded to Birmingham - imagine if that transfer would have gone through...
i'd have to say there is a case here of the player putting in the effort and the manager backing them too. look at rooney... is he actually the player he should be? no frankly he doesn't care enough. a few seasons back he really tried when conaldo left and in particular from headers etc... its all gone. look then at our own lesser lights. gonzalez, babel, leto the lit of guys not trusted or backed despite mistakes.... or how about paletta... look at what dedication can do for you!!! rodgers s giving some time to kids... but is he going to really back sterling now? what about ibe? wisdom? great start.... sterling wants to pull his head in and work but there you go...
Yep, it is all about gambles. Some are bigger than others, especially of promising youngsters. Man UTd paid £12.7m for C.Ronaldo and it paid off, massively! They paid £18m for Anderson, say no more! C.Ronaldo cost £12.7m, Reyes cost £17m (the current Arsenal record). At the time, Reyes was the better better so they had every right to brag but, of course, that wonderful thing called hindsight kicked in. With the, you are obviously within your rights to big up C.Ronaldo. We were rumoured to be interested in buying him from Tottenham too, under Woy I think?
The same with Simao, JOvetic, Silva, Villa, Alves ( that deal was actually done and they pulled the plug), etc. Rafa also let Aguero pass as we were offered the chance to sign him for 12 mil.
At that time in his career, he could have played out wide and been used to rest Torres which we never could do. Same with Aguero if we had got him.
Who knows - but it would have been a great experiment to see how well he progressed, rather than David Ngog and Voronin.
Voronin was a actually a good player, but wasn't suited to the pace of the prem as he needed to much time on the ball, but he certainly wasn't as crap as he looked in the prem, bit like Morientes sadly. never rated Ngog though.
I remember we loaned Voronin out to Hertha Berlin I believe and he decided to score some 18-20 league goals for them, I was like wtf????
I spoke to an ex scout of Liverpool who recommended C. Ronaldo to us but for 7 mil but Houplier thought he was an expensive show pony. The same lad told me he played Fowler injured to try and damage his rep with the fans so he could sell him with out to much fuss
