Rafael Benitez’s ‘facts’ episode was a source of much amusement for Manchester United fans last season, given that the opinions he was insisting were facts were nothing of the sort.
Another of Benitez’s lies is that Manchester United spend more money than Liverpool FC in the transfer market. Sir Alex Ferguson corrected Benitez at the time but the lie has perpetuated.
Fernando Torres, who has yet to win anything at Liverpool, is a follower of the FSW’s nonsense, again claiming that his team can’t compete with us financially.
“I don’t know about Liverpool’s financial situation but I know we don’t have the same money as Manchester United or Chelsea,” he said. “We’re fighting them with less money every season. That’s not a problem for us – we’re a strong team and we’ll win trophies with money or without it. The important thing is we’re getting closer to the title. It’s been frustrating for me because three years without a trophy for Liverpool is too long. The next one is coming, though – I’m sure of it.”
Difference – United’s total spend is £0.45m more, United’s net spend total is £34.2m more.
Difference – Liverpool’s total spend is £6.15m more, Liverpool’s net spend total is £11.45m more.
Difference – Liverpool’s total spend is £9.4m more, Liverpool’s net spend total is £11.52m more.
Difference – Liverpool’s total spend is £15.14m more, Liverpool’s net spend total is £24.14m more.
Difference – Liverpool’s total spend is £12.8m more, Liverpool’s total net spend is £4.15m more.
Since Benitez joined Liverpool in 2004, United have spent more than Liverpool during just one season, whilst Liverpool have been the bigger spenders in the other four. That isn’t just total spend, but net spend as well.
As it turns out, Benitez spends more money than Ferguson, yet every single season he has finished below us in the league. Fancy that, eh Torres?
I eagerly await the data for next season when the £80m for Cristiano Ronaldo can be taken in to account. Although, Liverpool might make back a few quid when Alonso and Mascherano jump ship!
Stephen – mate, the guy’s a homo cunt who looks like Bruno.
liverpool have money, they’re just shite with it
@unitedgirl
LoL, in a nutshell, Yeeeeeees
Shame, I actually admired him up until this point.
Damn lady-boy.
Brando.
Get a grip, United never lose out on players? Our tight as fuck board and their refusal to spend big was the primary reason for Cantona’s retirement. He stated he was sick of watching the big players of the era, i.e. Baggio, Shearer, Batistuta, Ronaldo, Weah, Davids, Kluivert, etc being transferred and United sitting back and watching, why couldn’t we have signed these players? Instead we were signing bargain basement players like Solksjaer, May, Johnsen, and Cruyff.
In recent years we’ve lost out on Ronaldinho, Essien, and Robben due to being outbid. We signed Mikel only for Chelsea to wave bigger money at him and encourage him to come out with shit about being ‘forced’ and sign for them instead. The big signings we’ve made in recent years, Veron, Van Nistelrooy, Rio, Rooney, Berbatov were made easy as no other club was coming in for them as well, had Real, or Chelsea wanted them they would have outbid us, no problem.
We have NEVER been the biggest spenders even in England, never mind Europe. Traditionally Arsenal always had more money than us up until the start of the Prem, Liverpool had more money throughout the 70’s and 80’s, and even in the Prem years, Blackburn had more at the start, then Newcastle out spent us, then Leeds, then Chelsea and Liverpool under Benitez, now it’s Citeh. Yes we’ve got money to spend every summer, but no more than, and indeed less then, one or two certain others.
Why do you think we’ve employed a vast team or scouts for South America recently? Because we are continually outbid by other clubs for the big players and are finding and developing them ourselves now, hence Possebon and the Da Silva’s.
“The important thing is we’re getting closer to the title. It’s been frustrating for me because three years without a trophy for Liverpool is too long.”
does he ever won any league title in spain????
liverpool FC is bullshit..and its fact!!!!
Face it!
Rafa is a crap manager!
Fact – The training facilities for youth & senior are not integrated
Fact – His scouting team is PA(checko)THETIC!
Fact – Loads of players he sold could have stayed and done the business (or been happy squad players by now…)
Fact – His status as tha ‘Tactican’ was thankfully brought into question when he got cagey with a 7 point lead (oh how that hurt u scousers..)
Fact – He started the personal! ‘war of words’ (after SAF talked about title hopes and he talked about SAF… right churlish wanker!
Fact – He has won NOTHING in 3 years.
Fact – He is a La Tasca Assistant Manager pocket-holder! (PB Tee-bag style!)
Fact – BRANDO GOT SERVED BY tWINNYD & DAZJOE!!hahahaha
Fact – Unitedgirl is pure class!!
Fact – I love RoM as much as I love dogs in my home country!!!!
rafa is a crap…and its also a fact!!!
The scouse weren’t far off last year. IF they manage to churn the deadlocks into victories, they are a decent bet for next season bar potential transfers of Alonso & Mascherano.
The rent boys are in for an interesting season. We are likely to see tactics from the Serie A being implemented in the Premiership. How that works, only time will tell but having retained their entire first team squad and add to that a few acquisitions, they are likely challenge strongly.
United challenging next term WILL depend on Ferguson replacing the goals plus assists provided by Ronaldo and Tevez. Valencia is an interesting acquisition, he certainly fills the void created by Ronaldo but only in terms of men on the pitch. He is no goal scoring threat. Lets face winning the league four times in a row? This isn’t Ligue 1.
The smart money would be on Arsenal lifting silverware. Spending approximately close to 40 Million over the past year (something the press & blogs fail to notice), Wenger has increased the depth of his First Team more than any other team in the Top 4.
@Brando
We get outbid by people all the time. Chelsea, Real, Blackburn even! What do we do about it? We get players in who not many are watching and win trophies. You say the figures are in accurate, not how wrong can it be? +-10M? It still points to the fact that Liverpool have spent jus about the same as us. And have Liverpool ever had to sell to buy? List a case please. The problem with Liverpool, as mentioned, is that they spend 30M on 5 players while we spend it on 1. That is why we don’t have as much movement of players as they do.
- To put in plainly, Sir Alex is a bigger gambler of talent, and he has won the bet many more times than most
Coming back to the question posed by this thread:
L’pool players are just playing along, the moment they leave for Real Madrid
or anywhere else, send a reporter to interview them. Ask them this question again. The FSW will be embarrassed to no end.
united can pay bigger wages ( see link in my previous post)
united make more money than lfc ( stadium etc.)
united have been able to overpay for some players just to make sure they get them ( nani at 17mill anyone?)
fergie has never had to sell to buy.
fergie already had a good squad when rafa joined so has been able to just add a few expensive signings to improve things. rafa has had to rebuild an entire squad – he couldnt afford quantity and quality.
None of these things are bad for united. Most teams would like to be in uniteds position when it comes to money. rafa is slowly approaching the same situation – they have recently overpaid for johnstone, rafa wanted him and they paid what they had to get him ( they couldnt do this even last year with Barry). The last couple of seasons he has been able to pay larger sums for individuals because he is happier with the squad he has built.
You will always have more money than lfc , at least until they get a new stadium ( or should I say if they get a new stadium).
THIS IS NOT A BAD THING FOR UNITED.
This year you have at least £80 mill to spend , how much has rafa got?
They are not accusing you of buying the league or anything just that it is hard to compete with you financially ( just like you have struggled to compete with richer teams)
Its obvious you have more money than lfc. Why is it so hard for you lot to admit?
Brando – We have £80 million to spend (allegedly) because Sir Alex turrned a young kid into World Player of the Year. Again it comes down to taking risks.
So a team that was able to win the European Cup doesn’t have quality??Wow.Just…wow.
@King Eric – I`m not disputing where you have got the money, i even listed some of the ways that you can and do generate more cash than lfc.( you can add being able to cash in on some of your stars over the years, ie. beckham, now ronaldo etc. as rafa really hasnt done this, if they end up selling alonso/masch they will reap the rewards too)
So in the scheme of things it doesnt really matter where the 80mill comes from the fact is you have all that money where rafa has not even half that.
Thats my whole arguement – rafa and torres says its hard to compete financially and its largely true. As I said I dont know why that is so hard for united supporters to admit when it is blindingly obvious. There is no shame in having more money available than lfc.
But to address your point on taking risks – surely that is what rafa has been doing all along? Lfc only have 4 players in the squad that cost over 10mill. When you buy players for lower than that you are taking risks. I am not saying that you spend over that and you are guaranteed success you just have to look at keene and veron to see thats not true. But if a player has a larger price tag it normally means he has been acknowledged as a pretty good player so the risk is normally lower.
Ronaldo still wasnt cheap at 12 odd mill but he was less of a risk than say gonzales that rafa bought hoping he would become a star. Would rafa have been allowed to spend 12 mill on an unproven kid? You can point at babel (11mill) i suppose but fergie has also paid large sums for nani , anderson, tosic (sp?) etc.
The need for a new squad coupled with not enough money (to buy quantity and quality) is one of the reasons for the high turn over of players at lfc. he has bought what he could afford ( gambled) and quickly shipped them out when it was obvious they werent going to work out. The most he has lost on a player was probably either morrientes or keene (neither a ruiness affair), nearly all the others have been used in swap deals or made a small profit hence the net spend of 80 odd mill for a whole new squad.
As I said earlier rafa is now in a similar situation where he can pay (overpay?) larger sums for individuals rather than try and fill a squad out. I only say similar because as is largely reported he will still have to sell if he wants to buy more than 1 or 2 players.
If lfc can hold onto alonso and masch I think it will be a very interesting season. May the best team win.
@theboogeyman – Dont make me list that squad please, we all know hardly any of those players where good enough to hold onto long term.
Name me one player from that squad that has gone on and been a real success elsewhere?
Or name me one player that you would have liked in your squad let alone 1st 11? i would say the reason lfc did so well that year was rafa was used to a european style of play. He struggled in the prem because the squad was nowhere near good enough to sustain any sort of challenge and he struggled to adapt his tactics to suit the different style required. This resulted in lfc flopping in the league and being able to concentrate on the cup.
In europe however his tactics were still relevant and they all played beyond their ability.
They then rode their luck during the final and claimed the prize.
At the end of the day he inherited an ageing (hamman), injuryprone (kewel) or down right usless ( diouf, chereau, etc . etc.) load of players that just finished a whopping 32 points off the top.
You can not seriously believe that nearly all of those players didnt need moving on sooner rather than later.
One player??Easy:Steven Gerrard.He’s good.Except he’s a scouser.I wouldn’t mind him if he wasn’t scouse.
But,on the other hand,like King Eric says,we have 80 million because we took a risk and it paid off.Unfortunately for you,Rafa is not the kind of manager to take risks and believe in youth.
PS:You are one of the most civilized Liverpool fans I’ve seen recently on this site.You should see the two vile bastards,Nas and jon,who give decent people like you bad reputations.
@theboogeyman – I nearly wrote “and dont say gerrard” but as he is still in the lfc squad I thought it was obvious that he was one of the only players worth keeping from rafas original squad (along with carra, sami and even rise was ok for a while). So you cant really disagree that rafa had to change that original squad sooner rather than later to be able to mount a serious challenge ( you dodged the question a bit in your reply).
i think I answered the rafa taking risks question in my reply to King Eric at 14:45. he really has had to gamble in the cheaper end of the market ( even free players) almost the entire time he has been at the club.
he also couldnt really risk playing too many young players either. He barely held onto his job a couple of years ago as it is. If he had risked the youth and failed he would have been long gone. Also if you look at the general age of his squad they are nearly all quite young anyway. reinna is only 26 ( a babe in goalkeeping terms ) agger, skirtel and johnson all 24 ( i could go on). Youve only really had evans and one of the twins play semi regularly this year ( youngsters) and that was mainly due to the long term injuries of brown and neville ( this meant oshay had to fill in at right back but then he and rio also had time out letting them in). So i dont think its really fair to say that fergie gives youth much more of a chance ( these days) apart from in the little cups. Ok macheda came on and scored a couple of really important goals but how much of a chance would he have had this season if you still had ron and tevez ? I`d wager quite a lot that he wouldnt have played too much.
I take it from the general lack of replys that you now all agree that generally it is hard for lfc to compete financially with united. as I said there is no shame in having more money than lfc I just find it a bit strange none of you can really admit it.
Re: Brando
” they have recently overpaid for johnstone, rafa wanted him and they paid what they had to get him ”
I’d have bought Glen Johnson if I was Rafa!
@knightsmith – dont get me wrong I think he is a really good player who could help lfc break down teams that park the bus. What I was trying to say is I`m glad that rafa is finally in the position where he can overpay to get a player he really wanted (instead of someone telling him he shouldnt spend that much ie. the barry saga last year or simply not having enough to bid that much). 17 mill is a bit much but as rafa said you have to pay what the selling club demands if you want to compete. No team is prepared to let their good players go cheap, united seem to be suffering from this in spades at the moment.
Brando
You’ve said that you’re not disputing where the money has come from, but you cannot argue that, if, and it’s a big if, we spend 80 million this summer, and Liverpool spend, lets say, 40 million then that makes it so much harder to win the league as we have so much more money. We’ve had to lose the number one player in world football to get that money! Selling Ronaldo hardly improves a team does it? Where would you stop? If we also sold Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Anderson, Rooney and Berbatov to boost our transfer kitty to 250 million, would that make us unstoppable?
You could do the same thing, if Rafa wants big money to spend then sell Torres. Simple. I’m sure Citeh would pay up to 60 or 70 million for him, add Alonso and Mash and Arbeloa and there you go, a nice 130 mill for Rafa to play with. Yet I’m sure if Liverpool did that, and you won nothing, then your fans would cry “How can we compete, yeah sure we spent 120 million but we had to sell our stars.” Isn’t that what we’re doing?
And asking who we would have took from the players Benitez inherited? Well Dudek was a better option that Roy ‘Fucking’ Carroll, believe me! Riise was a tasty full back, Carragher a solid centre half, I think Hamman was probably just a bit better than Djemba Djemba. Kleberson, or Miller, same thing goes for Kewell and Bellion, Owen was still there, Rafa chose to sell him, we would certainly have took him, and Cisse looked handy before his bad injuries. Then of course there’s Gerrard. I think we would have took all those players off your hands for the squad at least.
All the figures prove that in the 17 years of the Prem Liverpool have spent as much as United. Yes, Benitez has spent a lot to remodel his squad but that doesn’t explain, or excuse, the money spent (wasted?) by Houlier, Evans, and Souness.
Re Brando:
I was only jesting, I wouldn’t pass comment on any player any team signed until they’d kicked a ball in anger. Only time will tell how he goes, same as that Spanish city, Valencia, United have signed; but God knows where we’re going to play them all!
@Dazjoe – My whole point was the majority of that squad needed moving on sooner rather than later. Of course there were some players ( i did list carra and rise etc.) but it was pretty obvious that most werent good enough to mount a serious challenge. That is why rafa couldnt just add a few quality ( expensive) signings he had to spread his money around to re build the squad. ( he did hold onto to the better players)
rafa didnt decide to sell owen, he wouldnt sign a new contract and wanted out on a free so we had to get what we could before this happened. 8mill at the time I think was a bargain for real. Cisse was ok but was all speed and not much else, hardly in torres league.
this year is abit of a one off for united in my opinion. When was the last time fergie sold someone at his peak like ronaldo? I cant remember 1 player ( espech in the prem era, maybe stam?). he normally sells when the players are on the way down , ie beckham . So yes you probably arent too happy where the money came from this year because you have lost a really good player to get it. But in previous years money has been available without having to sell anybody let alone one of your stars.
I am not defending the money wasted by other lfc managers. All my comments are just trying to prove that torres and rafa arent as deluded about the money situation, since he has been in charge, as the original article states. Rafas situation was actually made worse by the managers before him. They had all spent a lot and didnt really leave rafa much to play with in terms of the players he inherited and how much cash was left for him to work with.
@knightsmith – well I expect you will have to rotate the team quite a lot to keep everyone happy
Brando.
Your right about Ronaldo, it is prob the first time fergie’s lost a player, either at or approaching his peak, when he wanted to keep them. The only other one was Kanchelskis, up to a point. Fergie never wanted to sell, as he’s mentioned in his autobiography, but Kanchelskis forced the issue; but he wasn’t Ronaldo class.
I appreciate Rafa has had to spend to improve/change the squad, whereas Fergie has had money for just one or two players per year, but the issue that has royally ticked us United fans off this last 12 months is the constant moaning of ‘Pool fans and players and manager of the lack of cash and the constant struggle to compete with United financially. Every time we point out the figures, i.e. that Benitez has spent as much, so the cash IS there, it’s ignored by 95% of Liverpool fans, and 100% of the media. What Rafa chooses to spent the cash on is up to him, but he could have rivaled us for the signings of Rooney, or Carrick, or Berbatov if he had wanted, instead he wanted to beef up the squad; fair enough, in his eyes it had to be done, but if 2 guys walk into a clothing store with 500 pounds, and guy number 1 buys 1 quality expensive pair of jeans, and the other buys 10 cheaper pairs of jeans and T shirts, then guy 2 can’t complain about guy 1 looking better can he? He had the same money to spend. He just spent it in a different way. Bit of a shit comparison but you get the point. However most Liverpool fans still cling the belief that your club has less money than us, that’s just not true.
You can bet very large amounts of money that if we sign, say, Fabiano, Buffon, and De Rossi for 70 million, plus of course Valencia, then we will see Liverpool fans by their thousands come out and say ‘How can we compete with that?’ Easy. As I said earlier, sell Torres then you too will have 70 mill to spend.
A look at both clubs official websites also tells you why we can spend 30 mill on 1 player instead of 6, United have 23 youth players listed as part of their first team squad( with squad numbers), at least 12 of which have appeared in the Prem for us, in contrast Liverpool have 9 youth players in their squad, just 3 (I think) of which have appeared in the Prem league, apologies if I’m wrong. Our youth system enables us to beef our squad up with talented kids, if Liverpool’s doesn’t then that is something for Benitez to seek to solve, instead of firing insults at Fergie and looking to divert attention from his, lets be honest, mediocre transfer record ( Kromkamp? Josemi? Morientes? Keane? Babel? Lucas? Deggen? Dossena?).
Anyway, respect to you for coming on our website and speaking eloquently and intelligently unlike so many other scousers who come here and embarrass themselves.
Hi, I’m a LFC fan and only logged onto this website to express my disgust at Manchester United’s (potential) contract offer for Michael (Judas) Owenand why Manchester United are even considering purchasing the money grabbing, disloyal, arrogant, selfish blah, blah ‘professional’ But I found myself perusing the transfer dealings piece and would question some of the figures. Granted I am not an employee of LFC or MUFC and I presume no one else is here, however when certain media outlets post a similar figure for a transfer fee then I tend to assume that is the correct fee. However I notice that the transfers of Nani, Anderson are recorded as 13.5 and 15 here whereas most reports have them as 17 and 18. Recently The Times mentioned Hargreaves was purchased for 21 not 17. There are also questions of the Liverpool figures e.g. LFC and Mr Benitez have both mentioned the fee was 20.2, a fact (no pun) that is backed up by several newspapers but some people still believe the fee was 26.5. Are LFC lying and colluding with the Spanish journalists that also referred to the price in Euros in 2007 which amounted to 20+ish in sterling during the hazy days of Summer 2007 pre financial collapse? Anyway I find it all relative as I recall Mr Ferguson spending vast sums during the late 80s on players e.g. Ince for 1, Webb for 1.5, Phelan 0.75, Wallace for 1.3 and Pallister for 2.3 in 1989 when the transfer fee record was 2 (for Gascoigne) and when teams didn’t spend more than 1 on more than 1 player. I believe those figures are correct, I tend to have a good memory (I need it being a LFC fan!) but in 1990 Mr Ferguson finished 11th despite ‘overhauling’ the Manchester United for 4 successive seasons. So it takes time and lots of money to build a title winning team. Mr Ferguson probably spent significantly more money than Mr Dalglish so that Manchester United were able to compete with LFC, by just spending similar amounts would have corroded any chance for Manchester United to surpass Liverpool In the modern context Mr Benitez needs to spend big to overtake Manchester United because the Liverpool squad left by Mr Houllier following his ‘Reign of Terror’ required an almost complete overhaul whereas Mr Ferguson has just needed to ‘tweek’ his squad since 2004 but has spent 12+ on Rooney, Carrick, Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson, Berbatov, Valencia whilst having Van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo, Saha, Ronaldo on the books at the time. However Mr Benitez has only spent 12+ on Torres, Mascherano, Keane, Johnson and had only Cisse as a pre-arrival. So I think Mr Benitez has done a very good job so far in the transfer market in trying to keep up with Manchester United.
@Dazjoe – The way I see your clothes buying comparison is the guy who buys the expensive shirt ( fergie) has already got a wardrobe full of cheap t shirts and jeans ( and a few nice bits) at home already. He has already built a nice clothes collection over many years. The other guy (rafa) has just been given his clothes by a dodgy frenchman ( houllier) with no dress sense. These cloths are all tatty and torn so he has to buy a load of cheap stuff or his arse will be hanging out for most of the year. He didnt really want the cheap stuff but he didnt really have any clothes at all worth wearing. After he has bought enough cheap stuff to fill his wardrobe he can then afford to spend a bit more on some smarter gear (torres).
Ive already pointed out some of the ways united generate more cash than lfc ( without having to sell your best players) . I think you will always have more money than us. But rafa has just about got to the point where he has a big enough squad and can concentrate on just adding the better players as fergie has been doing for years.
I think that is what rafa is sort of meaning when he says its hard to compete – We do have similar amounts to spend but as we strengthen you always , obviously, strengthen as well. So it seems like we are always treading water and because you already had a head start ( a better squad when rafa joined) it is very difficult to catch up. We would need significantly more money than you to be able to quickly catch and overtake you. Instead he has had to do it slow and steady, and last year he got pretty close.
on the youth issue – lfc have about 23 players with an average age under 19 ( this may have changed slightly cause we just sold a couple) . I dont think any of these have made a 1st team appearance yet but all are still young. Another six or so ,all around 20, made at least 1 appearance last year with ngog and insua getting the most time. So we have a healthy number of young players but only time will tell if they make the grade.
Youve only really had evans and one of the twins play semi regularly this year ( youngsters) and that was mainly due to the long term injuries of brown and neville ( this meant oshay had to fill in at right back but then he and rio also had time out letting them in). So i dont think its really fair to say that fergie gives youth much more of a chance ( these days) apart from in the little cups. Ok macheda came on and scored a couple of really important goals but how much of a chance would he have had this season if you still had ron and tevez ? I`d wager quite a lot that he wouldnt have played too much. This may all change now as this transfer window seems crazy but last year I dont think fergie used youth that much more than rafa until his hand was forced by injuries. Rafael played because of injuries , his brother didnt get much of a look in because evra was fit for most of the season.
You say rafa has had a mediocre transfer record but he has built an entire ,young (average age of playing squad this year was under 25) squad capable of sustaining a challenge for a net spend of £80-£100 mill (depending which figures you believe). Several big clubs are now wanting our players as well which hasnt really happened for years and will send that net spend tumbling if we do sell ( please god no).
He must have done something right.
And how much do your players get paid a week in comparrison?
or am i too assume you are all accountants that are fully aware of both clubs finances?