Villas-Boas did want Baldini though, if reports are to be believed, so he can't complain about the players he was given. Rodgers also managed to spend quite a lot of money on players who are yet to do anything for Liverpool. Sturridge and Coutinho were clearly good buys, but the rest were questionable or unproven, at best.
A lot of those it is really too early to say tbh. Ilori, Alberto, Yesil and Can are for the future >Borini is still 21 and the fee isn't outrageuos >Assaidi is worth more than we bought him for, I reckon he will go to stoke for 5-7 mil >Allen is gash and a waste of money and is BR's love child >Aspas also represents money spunked up the wall >Other catastrophes are Moses, Sissoko and Sahin, luckily only loans. >Toure served a purposed, but ultimately needs to be moved on. >Mignolet, Sturridge and Coutinho are good value for money. >Lallana is a very good player and will fit in. We overpaid though by about £10 million and Lambert I am happy with at 4 mil So, jury is still out for me.
Just out of interest though, what are the wages like at Liverpool? You could say that Toure served his purpose (was that purpose to make everybody wistfull about Jamie Carragher and make Coates look good?) but what about signing on fees and wages? All fans tend to forget about this when thinking about costs but even someone on £80,000 a week for two years is costing a club over a million pounds (including things like NI contributions and other costs).
The last Premier League wage bills released were these: Man City: £233m, Man Utd: £181m, Chelsea: £179m, Arsenal: £154m, Liverpool: £132m, Spurs: £96m, QPR: £78m, Everton: £63m. The figures are always a year behind, so these were for the season before last.
It's true about Toure, he will be on about 70/80k given his age and his previous clubs. Coutinho is rumoured to be on about 50 as is Sterling and hendo. Sturridge on about 80 along with old timers of Skrtel and Agger. Incredible to think Suarez started for us on 40k! Gerrard is now our biggest earner on 130-140 (Suarez was/is 180) followed by knob head glen Johnson on 90k So, we're still a million miles away from City. Although I think everyone has a CL clause in their contract so will get some sort of wage bump.
"All fans tend to forget about this when thinking about costs but even someone on £80,000 a week for two years is costing a club over a million pounds (including things like NI contributions and other costs)." The players tend to operate as "personal service companies" for taxation. As I have previously said, this means the player : - is responsible for their own PAYE and NI payments - probably takes nearly all of the money as dividends (avoiding NI payments)
"Man City: £233m, Man Utd: £181m, Chelsea: £179m, Arsenal: £154m, Liverpool: £132m, Spurs: £96m" Levy strikes again. That is an increase of ~5m from the year before.
Player From Fee Date Fabio Borini Roma £10,400,000 13 July 2012 - Fee is about right... not a "top 4" striker- but got what we paid for him. Will prob sell for similar Joe Allen Swansea £15,000,000 10 August 2012 - Overpriced but a good squad player. Oussama Assaidi Heerenveen £2,400,000 17 August 2012 - Not good but cheap. Didn't lose a bunch on him. Nuri Sahin Real Madrid Loan 25 August 2012 - Loan player... didn't work out. Samed Yesil Bayer Leverkusen £1,000,000 30 August 2012 - Nothing special yet. 1mill... future? Daniel Sturridge Chelsea £12,000,000 2 January 2013 - Amazing signing for the price Philippe Coutinho Inter Milan £8,600,000 30 January 2013 - Amazing signing for the price Luis Alberto Sevilla £6,800,000 22 June 2013 - Supposedly one for the future... we'll see. Iago Aspas Celta Vigo £7,500,000 23 June 2013 - Terrible bit of business. Simon Mignolet Sunderland £10,000,000 25 June 2013 - Easily worth £10m Not quite as good as Reina though. Kolo Toure Man City Free 2 July 2013 - Thank goodness he was free. Had a couple good games at the start Aly Cissokho Valencia Loan 20 August 2013 - Horrendous business... thankfully on loan Tiago Ilori Sporting CP £7,000,000 2 September 2013 - Supposedly for the future and advancing well Mamadou Sakho PSG £15,000,000 2 September 2013 - I have mixed feelings... sometimes great... sometimes not... still young Victor Moses Chelsea Loan 2 September 2013 - horrendously bad... thankfully on loan. Rickie Lambert Southampton £4,500,000 2 June 2014 - Probably worth the price for a decent backup... not really a "top 4" striker though. Adam Lallana Southampton £25,000,000 1 July 2014 - Good player- paid 50% more than he's worth though. Emre Can Bayer Leverkusen £9,750,000 3 July 2014 - I really can't say, Can I? Overall- our worst acquisitions have been temporary loan signings... our bad signings have been cheap and not set us back much (you get what you pay for)... Besides Coutinho and Sturridge very few amazing signings... but he hasn't shelled out a lot on flops either. I'm content but not thrilled with who Rodgers has signed. I'm more concerned with who we haven't signed than who we have.
Roy Rodgers has a poor strike rate with purchases, I expect most of the players coming in this summer to flop, so far he has brought in a mixture of (or been linked to) mediocrity, over priced players and unproven younger players. Roy certainly has a good eye for a dud.
Was the loan fee for nuri sahin something outrageous? We were in for him as well and apparently Real wanted 6-8 million just for the 1 year loan. We bailed out of it because of that, rumour at the time was that mourinio was being a dick about it because he hates wenger, and wanted sahin to go to Liverpool because he was friendly with rodgers. So you might have got a wee discount, but you ended up paying a loan fee and his wages.
I've no idea... From all accounts though- he had a lousy attitude and acted like he didn't want to be with us. Think we had a buyout clause but obviously we didn't exercise it.
It is very hard to have any advantage over other clubs in valuing players so any manager is going to have about a 50:50 hit and miss rate. Spurs have done much better than this when we've had a DoF though (not counting last year's signings where its too early to tell).
You know... it's interesting... Comolli was so highly mocked from all sides for wasting money on non-talents... but for all his misses- he did have a couple of big hits. Bale alone made Comolli's transfer era at Spurs "profitable"... and again at Liverpool- "Suarez profit" will more than offset his other big blunders... Henderson has also increased value significantly despite looking a big waste at first. As highly criticized as the man was- he's given profits to both Spurs and us. He took big gambles that mostly didn't pay off... but those that did... really did.
Arnesen and Comoli actually assembled a core of players in their respective periods that helped Spurs to consolidate and improve in PL/UEFA land. That is probably more important than the selling prices of the odd player.
