Players signed by Rafael Benitez 2. SA In order to try and dispel a few media fuelled myths that sections of our fan-base seem to have swallowed; heres the full list of players hes signed since hes been at the club (please read the summary below continued from part 1): 2008/09 Free – Philip Degen: Garbage, but free. £7m - Andrea Dossena: Italian international left back. Hasn’t settled. Bad signing. £3.5m – Diego Cavalieri: Reserve keeper. Only played league cup games so far. £1.5m – David N’gog: Young French striker. Promising. £19m – Robbie Keane: Everyone made up when we signed him. Didn’t work out and sold back to Spurs for £16m. £8m - Albert Riera: Spanish international. Started well but jury still out. Total bought: £39m £4m – John Arne Riise: Good servant but form tailed off. Snapped their hands off at £4m. Free – Harry Kewell: Harry who? Undisclosed – Anthony Le Tallec: Houllier youngster finally released. Fee not known. £11m – Peter Crouch: Laughing stock bought for £7m. Great signing. Wanted first team football. £2.25m – Danny Guthrie: Youngster from Acadamy thought not good enough. £3.25m – Scott Carson: Injury prone and Reina now first choice. Sold at profit. Undisclosed – Steve Finnan: Sold for a fee believed to be £1m £16m – Robbie Keane: Didn’t work out. Undisclosed – Jack Hobbs: Young defender that didn’t progress. Sold for believed to £1.5m. Total sold: £36.5m 2008/09 net spend: £2.5m 2009/10 £17.5m – Glen Johnson: Big fee, but has been brilliant so far. £17.1m - Alberto Aquilani: Injured so far but meant to be a class act. Highly rated in Italy. £2m – Sotirios Kyrgiakos: Last minute signing to fill Hyypia’s shoes. Only money we had to spend. £160,000 – Daniel Ayala: Young defender, played a few times this season and looked promising. Total bought: £36.76m £250,000 – Paul Anderson: Youngster that didn’t progess. Free – Jermaine Pennant: Out of contract. Poor signing. Free – Miki Roque: No idea who he is. Bought for peanuts. £3m – Sebastian Leto: Signed for £1.8m but didn’t get a work permit. Had to sell. £3.5m – Alvaro Arbeloa: Wanted to leave and out of contract in the summer. £30m – Xabi Alonso: Wanted to leave. Bought for £10.7m. Great signing. Total sold: £36.75m 2009/10 net spend: £10,000 Total Players Bought: £228,976,000 Total Players Sold: £145,100,000 Total Net Spend: £83,876,000 So, that’s a total spend of just over £83m in 5 years at the club. An average of £16.6m a year. The vast majority of his signings have been sold at profit, or if still at the club, are worth a lot more than we paid for them. Exceptions being Babel and Dossena, but we’ll still get decent fees for them when sold as they’re full internationals. A lot of the signings above have been stepping stones in rebuilding the squad, gradually improving it by replacing players with better ones. Our league positions over the past 5 years and the improvement in our league positions and points totals show the progression. 2004/05: Finished 5th – 58 pts 2005/06: Finished 3rd – 82 pts 2006/07: Finished 3rd – 68 pts 2007/08: Finished 4th – 76 pts 2008/09: Finished 2nd – 86 pts Is it any coincidence that the progression seems to have stopped? Look at the transfer activity above for this year and it might explain why. We have a wage bill that is the 5th highest in the league. We can’t afford to pay players £70,000 to be sat on the bench like United and Chelsea can. Rafa Benitez’ record with signings at the top end of the market is nothing short of brilliant. Robbie Keane being the only flop, but he was sold 6 months later and only a small financial hit taken on that mistake. Rick Parry agreed the fee for buying him in the first place, and common knowledge Rafa wasn’t happy with it; feeling it was far too high. Where has this myth come from that he’s wasted money on shit players? Have a look through the lists above and try to point them out. There isn’t many. The ones that haven’t worked out he’s moved on, and not very often has he made a financial loss on them. The squad as at 2010 was worth a of a lot more than the one he inherited, and that £83m net spend over 5 years is easily offset by the increased value of the squad. He’d recoup nearly all of that through the sale of Torres alone - we got £50m after he left! He’s worked absolute wonders with the money he’s had to spend. Then take into account the massive amounts of money he’s self generated by reaching the latter stages of the CL every season. Two final appearances, one win. That £83m he’s spent he’s earned the right to spend. And when comparing it to what United have spent in the same period is flawed, as they already had a title winning squad and all the foundations in place. They weren’t rebuilding from scratch like we were. It also doesn’t take into account their massive wage bill. When comparing to Chelsea, they spent all their money before Rafa came to the club and just topping up an already established squad. At the time Rafa arrived, Chelsea had spent over £400m on pitch staff. Man City have spent more than double in the past 12 months than Rafa Benitez has in his 5 year reign. Do some people still want to get rid of him? If so, you’ve been listening to Martin Tylers Monkey and the hairy-handed halfwit for too much and unable to look at the facts yourself to form an opinion. Every manager makes tactical mistakes. Every manager makes mistakes in the transfer market. Despite what the press seem to think; Rafael Benitez appears to make less mistakes than most. We’re expected to win the league and European Cup on a budget and wage bill that is entitled to finish 4th or 5th in the league. We’ve been overachieving under Rafael Benitez, not underachieving. I’m not even going to mention the environment he’s working in under them two clowns. You’ll only miss him when he’s gone…. Do I miss him right now. When his first 11 was set in 2008, we never lost H and A to Chelsea or United. We are losing it with ease now! Next we will compare the squad he met with the squad he left as we debunk the myth about him.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 20:52:51 +0000
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