Championsleague 2009/10 Knockout Stages

[BirraImperial]

So, having seen the first games of this leg, which teams do you see going to Madrid? I'm betting on a Barcelona - Bayern final...

 

[holy king]

Just how did you work that out? Man Utd on the same level as Chelsea or City is simply laughable, was it the crippling debt that gave it away? Arsenal are possibly one of the best placed teams in the league to spend big just Wenger chooses not to, Liverpool also regularly spend big but just buy crap.

benitez net spend is something around 90 million since he arrived. 6 years ago.

i dont know the financial situation in machnester right now, but how do you think they got themselves all that debt?

 

[BCLG100]

120 million
http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2009/10/official-rafa-benitez-has-spent-over.html



They got themselves into that debt by being purchased with numerous banks money obviously. Seeing as even with the debt and the crippling interest we've still managed to turn a profit these past few years it is quite a good showing.

Comparitive figures
http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/engla...on-liverpool-boss-benitez-has-spent-more-than

 

[holy king]

ehm, thats total spent, not net.

nice try, whiskey nose.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

There were quite a few articles at that time on the subject:

Ferguson claimed yesterday that Liverpool were “well ahead of us in spending in the last five years”, but the statistics appear to support Benítez. United’s gross spending since June 2004, when the Spaniard arrived at Anfield, totals £221.95 million compared with £212.6 million by Liverpool. Ferguson’s net spending over that period is £147.90 million compared with Benítez’s £111.39 million

Note that those figures were before last summer's sale of Alonso and Ronaldo. On that basis, I think it's probable that Benitez's net spending exceeds that of Ferguson over the same period.

Would be interesting to compare wage totals, and average wages. Hull versus Burnley (in this respect) has been all over the sports pages the last few days, and I've also seen something suggesting Arsenal are very high payers (which doesn't fit at all with anything I've seen previously). Neither Liverpool and Man U are high wage payers compared to Chelsea or Man City.

 

[BCLG100]

ehm, thats total spent, not net.

nice try, whiskey nose.

ITV Sport calculate that in terms of net spending - taking into account income from player sales - the clubs are roughly equal. Liverpool's net spending on players over the last five years is £82.5 million, while United's has been £85.5 million. Chelsea spent £154.8 million net on players over the same period, while Arsenal splashed just £3.4 million in net terms.

Net spend since summer 2004 - £117.15m (not including signing on fees)

Perhaps reading the articles may have helped.

 

[holy king]

Spoiler :

paul tomkins article from last year:

I've tried in the past, but the media misinformation continues to gather pace like some ill-founded rumour. It's dangerous, because it causes unjust criticism.

Let's make one thing clear: Liverpool have nowhere near the most expensive squad in the Premiership.

No. Where. Near.

Indeed, there are three clubs who have spent at least 50 per cent more on their current squad than Liverpool.

Shocked? Well, you should be if you believe what's spouted out on TV. But it's true. And one of the clubs is not a name you'd necessarily expect.

It doesn't help that some people – such as Jamie Redknapp last night – focus on Rafa's gross spend, rather than the net amount. Effectively, this means counting all the right-backs he's bought as one big outlay, rather than looking at how he's replaced one with another for roughly the same £2m fee.

Working with just the gross spend, you add the £2m of Josemi to the £2m value of Kromkamp (even though it was a swap), to the £2.6m paid for Arbeloa. But none of these players were at the club at the same time, and each was traded to get to the point where an outright success was secured, as happened with the final purchase.

So even though the total cost of getting Arbeloa was just the £2.6m paid, people will use a figure almost three times as high. That is illogical.

(Another note, Jamie: Liverpool have three right-backs on the books, not just one; but the promising Darby, like Arbeloa, was injured and Degen has had a first season ruined by various ailments. So it's wrong to criticise the manager for an unbalanced squad and playing a midfielder out of position when three right-backs are unavailable.)

It's like the housing market: you don't just go in and buy a mansion straight from school. (Okay, so maybe some footballers do, but not the normal people of this world. As someone stuck with renting, I'm speaking generally here!)

You start with an affordable house; you then use the money from selling that to buy your next property. Most people can only get to own a big house having traded their way up over a number of years.

Yet when someone asks how much you spent on your house, you don't add all the houses you've ever bought together, do you?

If you own a £220,000 house, you don't say £470,000 because you add the £90,000 starter home and the £160,000 step up. That would be moronic.

According to the excellent and reliable www.LFCHistory.net, Rafa's gross spend is approximately £188m, but his net spend is only £108m, given that around £80m has been recouped.

(I'd hazard a guess that a large proportion of the £108m net spend has also been recouped through Champions League progress rewards, particularly with the Reds being the top-ranked team based on his five-year tenure.)

So it's easy to pluck a figure of '£195m' from the air, live on air, and make it seem like that should make a team champions, or ultra-close challengers.

But it's only the cost of the current squad that counts. Because that's all a manager can choose from; he can't go back in time and select a player he sold in order to trade up, just as you can't just turn up to one of your old houses and let yourself in.

You simply cannot add Rafa having spent £5.8m on Sissoko to the £18m on Mascherano, because the two were never part of the same set-up; one was bought and sold for a profit, and as with a house, the money reinvested in a step-up. If Sissoko isn't bought and then sold, Mascherano probably doesn't arrive.

Is that really too tough to grasp?

From my own experience in writing 'Dynasty', I can attest that researching transfer fees is never easy, given the amount of undisclosed fees and various add-ons (for various things, like appearances, trophies won, national caps and the cultivation of unexpectedly daring hairstyles).

But taking each fee as the most a club has expect to pay when add-ons are activated, I've calculated the cost of the most expensive squads in the league, and listed them below.

(Note: while it's impossible to be 100 per cent accurate with the figures in the public domain, I'd say that overall it's at least 95 per cent of the true amount, and with rival teams I've actually been generous and excluded a couple of players whose cost just isn't listed anywhere I could find.)

The most expensive squads (excluding players out on long-term loan) are as follows:

Chelsea £207m
Manchester United £197m*
Spurs £188m
Manchester City £140m
Liverpool £127m

(*£217m if Carlos Tevez's deal made permanent, given that it is initially a unique two-year £10m agreement, and very different from 99.9 of transfer deals. Effectively United are winning games with a £30m player.)

So what does this tell us?

Let's start with the leaders. United's squad contains the most home-grown players, such as Giggs, Scholes, Neville, O'Shea, Brown and Fletcher, who all arrived for free.

So that shows that it is a long-established core supplemented by a lot of expensive signings added one by one to a unified collection. In other words, classic, spot-on building of a squad when already established at the very top.

But it shows that even if you work with the unfair use of Rafa's gross spend, it still doesn't match what Ferguson has spent on his current squad, let alone those who have been bought and sold for record fees in the past.

And this is utterly, utterly critical, and beyond the grasp of some people who cannot analyse things with common sense.

After all, what does it matter how much Rafa has spent since 2004 if Ferguson is currently fielding players like Ferdinand (£30m) and Ronaldo (£12.8m) who were bought before then?

Isn't Rafa – in the real world – competing with a team whose construction started well before he arrived?

Unless Ferguson is banned from fielding players like Ferdinand and Ronaldo (which would be illogical), or forced to start from scratch in 2004 (again illogical), it is not a fair comparison, is it? – I mean, come on, use your brain for a second here.

After all, how much as Harry Redknapp spent since he took over at Spurs? I make it almost £50m. How much has Rafa spent since Harry Redknapp took over at Spurs? Nothing. But only a nutter would compare the two in this deeply skewed way.

Rafa has been in his job about five times as long as Harry, so you obviously wouldn't dare compare their teams. And yet Ferguson has been in his job about five times as long as Rafa, and yet the Spaniard is expected to have Liverpool as champions by now.

Chelsea and Spurs are actually the more interesting examples in many ways. I knew Spurs had spent a lot, but to have a current squad that cost almost £200m shocked me. Add together the cost of Bentley, Pavyluchenko, Palacios, Bale, Defoe, Bent, Keane and Modric and you more-or-less end up with the cost of Liverpool's entire squad.

I could be sarcastic – or media-style sensationalistic – and say that with that much spent, any manager should be able to win almost all of his matches, but it wouldn't be fair or logical. It's far more complex than that, and even a good manager like Redknapp has his work cut out.

Chelsea and Spurs have had seven managers between them since 2007. This means different men making expensive signings and ending up with a mixed squad. Based on expenditure, both of these clubs are massively underachieving this season. Almost certainly to blame for that is the hierarchy having itchy fingers when it comes to firing managers.

Of course, this analysis doesn't include wages, either. You don't get the very top players in the world without also having to pay them a king's ransom. Michael Ballack must be most expensive free transfer ever, with wages reported to be around £130,000 a week, or about £30m over five years. Again, Liverpool are no way near the highest payers, either.

So there you have it. By all means print it out and pass it around; 'pass it on', as the saying goes, including to those in the media who could do with reading it. By all means quibble over some of the finer details, as there is a tolerance of a few percent on the accuracy of the figures, but the overall gist is very much sound and robust.

Note: as all good schoolteachers tell you to do, my workings are there to see, and will be available to view on my website.

 

[BCLG100]

I fail to see your point, you argue that you cant compare teams to Benitez because they had existing managers who had already spent money but this is ridiculous because so did Liverpool.

If you insist on comparing during the whole time;
SAF
TOTAL IN (89) £392.44m TOTAL OUT (216) £244.12
Net spend = 148.32m
Net spend per year= 6.4m

Benitez
TOTAL IN (49) £210.50m TOTAL OUT (80) £125.38m
net spend= 85.12
net spend per year= 14.18m

Statistics taken from here
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...wenger-alex-ferguson-their-transfer-histories

 

[Lambert Simnel]

The Paul Tomkins article is riddled with inconsistencies which make it hardly worth quoting. (E.g. yes, Ferguson signed players before Benitez and is able to use them to compete for the league. But. Guess What ? Benitez was allowed to use players that previous 'Pool managers had acquired as well.)

A simple comparison of nett spend over Benitez tenure would suffice. No, they don't spend as big as City and Chelsea (and perhaps Spurs). But they are pretty much in the same area of net outlay as United, and (I'd guess) have spent well above Arsenal, Everton or Villa.

 

[weltraeumer]

Olympique Lyons vs. Bayern München today!

place your bet

I say 1:1 and Bayern will get beaten ugly in the final (no matter Inter or Barca)


in case you have no television (like me) it´s streamable here: http://www.laola1.tv/

 

[holy king]

that stream is austria/germany only respectively.

 

[Shekwan]

I'm not a big follower of football, but I think it bodes well for the sport in Europe as a whole that teams from France and Germany can still compete with the England/Spain/Italy axis.

Its definitely revived my interest in football.

 

[GIR]

lol - 0:3

Bayern München rox

 

[BirraImperial]

Great game for Bayern. Great for Ivica Olic. I wasn't expecting them to reach the final this year. Can't say it was a surprise seeing them go through against a poor, uninspired Lyon side. I really hope they go all the way, of course Inter and Barca are clear favorites.

 

[kronic]

Great game for Bayern. Great for Ivica Olic. I wasn't expecting them to reach the final this year. Can't say it was a surprise seeing them go through against a poor, uninspired Lyon side. I really hope they go all the way, of course Inter and Barca are clear favorites.

Lyon were awful in both legs. How the hell could they make it into the semis?

 

[warpus]

Huge game tomorrow. I am recording this one on my PVR and watching it when I get home from work..

Knowing Inter and Mourinho, they are going to defend like the Serie A mofos they are. Then again, this is the special one we're talking about here, so maybe he'll figure out that defense would be Inter's downfall? Barcelona's going to come at them like ann coulter on speed going after whatever the hell she's into when she's on speed. They can't rely on counter attack here.. but I suppose if they got the first goal, they might be able to get away with defending for the rest of the game.

 

[weltraeumer]

Yeah this is a nice game indeed. Barca has to play with cool heads, they can´t let a goal happen AND have to score twice... So I guess they will try to take the speed out of the game, keep the ball, like Mohammed Ali said "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee"
Inter I think will not lean back, they will run offensive too, for every goal they achieve is like a coffin nail for Barca.

 

[holy king]

Huge game tomorrow. I am recording this one on my PVR and watching it when I get home from work..

Knowing Inter and Mourinho, they are going to defend like the Serie A mofos they are. Then again, this is the special one we're talking about here, so maybe he'll figure out that defense would be Inter's downfall? Barcelona's going to come at them like ann coulter on speed going after whatever the hell she's into when she's on speed. They can't rely on counter attack here.. but I suppose if they got the first goal, they might be able to get away with defending for the rest of the game.

i wouldnt be surprised if he surprises guardiola with an unusually offensive lineup and start.











also, how the hell can an anti-footballer like olic score a hattrick?
he's the epitome of german football

 

[kronic]

Ribéry got suspended for three matches.

 

[Krill]

Jose I could kiss you. Complete legend.