Must also stop predicting stuff. :p

nah you've got it wrong... keep predicting, just bet more ;)

Departed Facility in LONDON-HEATHROW - UK    LONDON-HEATHROW - UK   10:17   

Transferred through LONDON-HEATHROW - UK    LONDON-HEATHROW - UK   10:15   

Wooo. Where is it going now I wonder...

Must also stop predicting stuff. :p

Liverpool to stay clear of big-money signings in January transfer window

Roy Hodgson will not target any marquee signings in the January transfer window as Liverpool's new owner, New England Sports Ventures, looks to put a stop to the profligate spending which it believes has hampered the club's progress in recent years.


NESV is believed to have been concerned by the millions of pounds haemorrhaged on transfer fees and wages by the club in recent years as it examined Liverpool's finances as part of the due diligence process carried out before the £300 million purchase of the Anfield side was completed.

Under Rafael Benítez, Liverpool spent more than £230 million in six years on fees alone – though much of that was recouped in sales – while the purchases of the likes of Raul Meireles, Christian Poulsen, Brad Jones and Paul Konchesky totalled £25 million in Hodgson's first summer at the club.

Though NESV's takeover freed up £36 million a year of revenue that had previously been used to service Liverpool's £282 million debts to be reinvested into the club, and though its offer did make provision for an immediate injection of funds into the playing staff, the American consortium has made it clear it expects value for money, both from fees and salaries.

"We have to be smart," John W Henry, NESV's principal backer, who will assume a place on Liverpool's board, said after the deal was completed.

"We have to be more efficient. When we spend a dollar it has to be wisely. We cannot afford player contracts that do not make long-term sense. We have to be smart, bold, aggressive. It's a great challenge."

Henry will take an active role in football matters at Anfield, assessing both Hodgson's suggested transfer targets and setting budgets for contract renegotiations of players already at the club.

The 61 year-old has already expressed his concern at the wages earned by older players on long-term, high-value contracts.

NESV's approach – applied with great success at the Boston Red Sox – is likely to rule Liverpool out of the glamour signings which many fans hoped would follow the eviction of previous owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Instead, the club's recent scouting activity suggests they intend to follow the Arsenal model – for which NESV has been keen to stress its admiration – or, perhaps more pertinently, institute on an informal basis the transfer policy employed at Manchester United, where premium fees are only paid for younger players with resale potential.

"At the Boston Red Sox, we invested a lot in management and the scouting system," said NESV chairman Tom Werner.

"We believe the foundation of any good sports club has to be the experience, valuation and understanding of scouting, so we will invest in that as well."

Those players assessed by Hodgson and his scouting team in recent weeks include Steven Defour, the Standard Liège captain and a long-term target for the Liverpool manager.

At 22, and around £12 million, Defour represents minimum risk for maximum reward.

Likewise Ibrahim Afellay, the PSV Eindhoven winger Liverpool whom have assessed on several occasions.

Already a Dutch international at 24 and heralded for several years as one of the brightest prospects in Europe, Afellay would fall within Liverpool's budget, while his wage demands would remain comparatively modest.

More expensive would be Eden Hazard, Defour's Belgian international team-mate, currently with Lille.

The 19 year-old has attracted interest from Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea and United, and could cost as much as £18 million.

However, Liverpool believe they can tempt the player – who is likely to be advised by his agent to seek a move to a club where he will play regular first-team football – and Kenny Dalglish was watching when the French side played Levski Sofia in the Europa League last Thursday.

Hodgson will not be allowed to add any players, though, without first trimming the squad. Liverpool boast the fourth-highest wage bill in the Premier League – standing at £107 million in 2009, according to football finance analysts Deloitte – but find themselves marooned in 18th place in the table, having finished seventh in Benítez's last campaign.

NESV does not blame Hodgson for that poor performance so far this season, but rather interprets it as evidence that many of the squad do not warrant either their reputations or their earnings.

Henry's experience as a futures trader, as well as his noted obsession with both sporting and financial statistics, put him in a perfect position to analyse such information.

He is acutely aware that figures suggest that, with almost unerring accuracy, a club's league position is defined by their wage bill. That Liverpool's key statistics are so discordant suggests the money is not being spent wisely.

He is also a devotee of Sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of the value of baseball players, pioneered by Bill James and which led Henry to appoint Theo Epstein as a general manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2002 at the age of 28.

Epstein applied James's principles – which are designed to help poorer teams identify value-for-money acquisitions – to lead the franchise to two World Series with a squad largely composed of bargain purchases.

Initial impressions of his time at Liverpool suggest he retains his faith in the method.

Six deals that would not have happened under NESV regime

Fernando Morientes
The Spanish international, signed for £6.3 million as a 28 year-old in January 2005, failed miserably at Anfield, scoring just 12 goals in 61 appearances. NESV’s belief in signing young players would have precluded the deal.

Robbie Keane
Signed as a 28 year-old for £20.3 million in 2008, the Irish international would also have been judged by NESV to be too old to warrant such a premium fee.

Alberto Aquilani
Though the Italian international’s age (26) and pedigree would have still made him a legitimate target, concerns over his injury record would have ruled out a £17 million move for the Roma player, now on loan at Juventus.

Jamie Carragher
John W Henry may have been concerned by the sight of a 32 year-old being handed a lucrative two-year contract just before NESV completed its takeover.

Maxi Rodríguez
The Argentine international, age 29, came on a free transfer from Atlético Madrid boasting a fine pedigree, but his wages, believed to be around £70,000 a week until June 2013, may have discouraged NESV from such a long contract.

Paul Konchesky
A four-year contract for a 29 year-old – as well as a £5 million fee – does not match the profile of deal NESV believes can help Liverpool develop in the long-term.

The unlikeliest hero emerges from Liverpool's age of ordeal



Anfield in recent months has hardly been the stamping ground of heroes. The last year has been one of witnessing each and every one of Liverpool’s most revered icons fall from grace.

Steven Gerrard, Merseyside’s Ajax, has at times seemed conquered by his own sorrow at the sight of the club he has devoted his life to begin to stutter and stumble.

Fernando Torres, formerly every inch an Achilles, has found his legs peppered with weaknesses, his fallibility evident to all. The suspicion lingers that Jamie Carragher, like Nestor, is too old to engage in combat.

One man, though, has transcended the wreckage of 12 months of despair and doubt to emerge with his reputation not only intact but enhanced. That man is Sotirios Kyrgiakos. Hence the sequence of rather unnecessary Iliadic parallels.
To recap: when Kyrgiakos set sail for Merseyside, that fabled land of demigods, from AEK Athens, he did so as the nominal replacement for Sami Hyypia. It was quite a task. Hyypia, of course, had been one of the club’s greatest servants, a rock at the heart of the defence for Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez for a decade.

Kyrgiakos, on the other hand, had failed at Rangers, endured a torrid time at Eintracht Frankfurt and retreated to the shadow of the Acropolis, seemingly content to play out his career in his homeland. There might have been a case to make him a £1.5 million back-up, a last resort, as Benitez apparently intended him to be.

At Liverpool at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, though, nothing goes to plan. Injury troubles across the backline meant Kyrgiakos was cast into battle. His initial skirmishes hardly suggested a future replete with glory. He was at fault for both Bolton goals when Benitez’s side won 3-2 at the Reebok a year ago, while it was his slip which allowed Lisandro Lopez to all but eliminate Liverpool from the Champions League in Lyon last November.

Liverpool fans, presumably, hoped that would be the end of him. Kyrgiakos, though, is made of sterner stuff. He persevered. He became a cult hero for his unstinting commitment, his refusal to wilt, his effort and his enthusiasm, whatever his lack of natural ability. There are those who say he does not deserve to wear such famous armour (sorry, sorry…) as the red shirt of Liverpool. There are others who would remark that if there were more like him, more who could mirror his determination, Anfield would not have been plunged into such a state of crisis.

Not in the sense that all of his team-mates must aspire to his level of talent, of course. Kyrgiakos is, by all traditional measurements, the worst player at Liverpool (which, given that some of those team-mates are Ryan Babel, Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen, is some accolade). His first touch is poor, his pace absent, his ability to retain possession rudimentary.

And yet it would be easy to make a case for him being Liverpool’s best player since that night in Lyon. Almost alone among his outfield team-mates, whenever Kyrgiakos plays, he does his job. He is employed to win headers. So he does. In both boxes. He is tasked with making hefty challenges, of clearing the area in front of Pepe Reina of danger. So he does. His abilities are not glamorous, they are not likely to inspire YouTube compilations or paeans of praise from observers, but he is what he is. In a team where so many are not what they were or so far from what they could be, he stands alone, never shirking or stinting, as Liverpool’s unlikely Olympian.

wait... wait... wait.... Maxi... is...on... 70K A WEEK, WHAT THE FUCK

I second this statement.

Although, to be fair, the fact that Poulsen is getting any money from the club is more of a tragedy.

Edited by Dugongs: 28/10/2010 07:17:40 PM

[size=6]EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool vs. Arsenal - Transfer spending comparison: 1990-2010 *Never published before*[/size]


How much money has Liverpool and Arsenal spent on transfers between 1990 and the present day? For the first time ever - either online or offline - here is a comparison between the two clubs for that entire period (using official figures).

NOTES

* The figures include all transfers up to and including Roy Hodgson's activity in the transfer market.

* The figures (bar Hodgson's transfers and Wenger's transfers since July 2009) have been compiled from the club's official financial accounts, i.e. a factual, irrefutable source. The club accounts are inalienable; there is a legal duty to provide accurate, correct figures on a yearly basis. Thus, any other figures in the press/on other websites that do not match these figures are WRONG.

* The purchases/sale price figures for Benitez's transfers from 2009 till he left are included in the 'Post Balance Sheet Events' section of the 2009 Accounts. Evidence below:

* Albert Aquilani + Sotiris Kyrgiakos (Bought for a combined 20.4m)


* Xabi Alonso, Andrea Dossena + Andrei Voronin (Sold for a combined 29.7m)


The only two transfers not noted in the accounts are:

* Jonjo Shelvey - £1.7m
* Ayala - £160k

I got those figures from LFChistory.net. They will do until I can get check the figures when next years accounts are released.

* Hodgson's transfers and Wenger's post May 2009 transfers (May is Arsenal's accounting deadline) I used the following figures:

HODGSON IN

* Raul Meirelles - £11.5m
* Paul Konchesky - £3.5m
* Danny Wilson - £2m
* Christian Poulsen - £4.5m
* Brad Jones - £2.3m

OUT

* Albert Riera £3.3m
* Diego Cavalieri £3m
* Krisztián Németh £1m
* Javier Mascherano £17.25m
* Lauri Dalla Valle £750k
* Alex Kacaniklic £750k
* Nikolay Mihaylov £1.5m
* Mikel Domínguez £2.6m
* Yossi Benayoun £6m

These figures were taken from reliable LFC sources. Again, I'm only using these as the club accounts for 2010 are not available yet.

WENGER IN

* Thomas Vermaelen, Laurent Koscielny + Sebastian Squillaci - £21.8m

OUT

* Emmanuel Adebayor + Kolo Toure - £41m

These figures were taken from reliable Arsenal sources(Arsenal Transfers|Arsenal Fan's Blog)

Obviously, for both teams, all loan deals/free transfers are excluded from the calculations.

99% of the figures come from the accounts of both clubs; 1% come from the official websites of each club and other recognised sources. I love the hypocrisy here - it's alright for every other site to use the likes of LFChistory.net for their entire analysis, but when I use it for a few figures (and only because the accounts are not available), it's suddenly wrong, and the figures are wrong!

* Adjustment for inflation is not necessary here. It’s ridiculous to even suggest it (as many did in my last article). I am merely presenting the facts - a like for like comparison between the two clubs.

LIVERPOOL FC vs. ARSENAL: TRANSFER SPENDING - 1990-2010


EVIDENCE

Below are snippets from every set of accounts detailing the transfer spending figures:

Liverpool
1990-91, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

Arsenal
1990-91, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

KEY POINTS

* Arsenal have spent less - both gross and net - in the last 20 years.

* Arsenal's total net spend (£80m) is 53% lower than Liverpool's (£172m)

* Liverpool recouped 21% more in player sales than Arsenal over 20 years.

* In the 90s, Arsenal again had a lower gross and net spend than Liverpool. However, despite this apparent handicap, they still managed to win 3 league titles.

* In the 00s, Liverpool had a 68% higher net spend than Arsenal.

* From 2004-2010, Arsenal have a negative net spend of -£11.4m, compared to Liverpool's net spend during the same period of £71m. According to the net spend cult, Liverpool have not had enough money to spend (!). If that's the case, where does that leave Wenger with a minus net spend over the last 6 years?! Does it mean (as the net spend cult argue) that he has not been given any money to spend, and that Arsenal's transfers in over the last 6 years cost nothing?!

KEY POINTS

* Arsenal have spent less - both gross and net - in the last 20 years.

* Arsenal's total net spend (£80m) is 53% lower than Liverpool's (£172m)

* Liverpool recouped 21% more in player sales than Arsenal over 20 years.

* In the 90s, Arsenal again had a lower gross and net spend than Liverpool. However, despite this apparent handicap, they still managed to win 3 league titles.

* In the 00s, Liverpool had a 68% higher net spend than Arsenal.

* From 2004-2010, Arsenal have a negative net spend of -£11.4m, compared to Liverpool's net spend during the same period of £71m. According to the net spend cult, Liverpool have not had enough money to spend (!). If that's the case, where does that leave Wenger with a minus net spend over the last 6 years?! Does it mean (as the net spend cult argue) that he has not been given any money to spend, and that Arsenal's transfers in over the last 6 years cost nothing?!

Considered in tandem with the Man Utd comparison I did yesterday (which showed that United had also spent less money that Liverpool), these figures show once again that the club has wasted an unacceptable amount of money on duff players over the last 20 years.

You only have to look at what Ferguson and Wenger have achieved with less resources to see that Liverpool's transfer spending needs to dramatically improve. And it seems NESV agrees with this too - their latest comments about being smart with money should be welcomed by Liverpool fans; if a more stringent, accountable transfer policy means the club managers are no longer allowed to waste tens of millions on ineffective players, then I'll take it.

Jaimie Kanwar

http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2010/10/exclusive-liverpool-vs-arsenal-transfer.html?

"NESV is believed to have been concerned by the millions of pounds haemorrhaged on transfer fees and wages by the club in recent years"

The huge minus 40m transfer budget in 2 years? Sound just like H+G to me, you can't win the EPL title on bargain buys.

"NESV is believed to have been concerned by the millions of pounds haemorrhaged on transfer fees and wages by the club in recent years"

The huge minus 40m transfer budget in 2 years? Sound just like H+G to me, you can't win the EPL title on bargain buys.

That was an interesting read SydCro

The former Liverpool suitor Kenny Huang, exposed by sportingintelligence in August (link here) as someone with limited sports business credentials who lied under oath in an embezzlement trial (which he won), has today been served with legal papers in London that accuse him fraud, deceit and defamation among other things, charges that if proven could cost him around $10m.

Bottom line is, though we signed some decent players like Garcia, Alonso, Reina and Torres under Benitez, we also wasted money on the likes of Morientes, Babel, Keane, Itandje, Dossena, Sissoko, etc.

They're looking to build the club into a business instead of a money sieve like City or Chelsea. Expect to see these 'Arsenal-esque' signings and a much more 'buy to sell' approach to get back to the top. Expect to see young talented players like Afellay, Aissati, Hazard, Elia, etc.