For me, this is a difficult question to answer as we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes at Anfield currently. I do feel it is unfair to criticise Roy Hodgson too harshly and there are a lot of things that have to be taken into account. Firstly, Roy has only been at the club for the best part of two months. To change everything he wants to change during that time is nigh on impossible, and takes time both to assess the squad and make judgements about players without having a great deal of time training with them. The late return of many players from World Cup would have certainly not helped matters and delayed his season preparations, as well as decisions over player’s futures including Javier Mascherano’s. There has been criticism therefore that he hasn’t given some players a chance before selling them; Alberto Aquilani, Lauri Dalla Valle and Emiliano Insua to name a few. In such examples I have no doubt that Roy already had knowledge of all three players before he even came to Liverpool. On Insua, he would have observed his performances in Liverpool’s campaign last season, on Dalla Valle he had watched the player after scouting reports from Fulham Academy director Malcolm Elias last season and was not convinced, while Aquilani would have been a player Roy would have known about for a few fair years with his contacts in Italy. Roy must have felt he was a player who would not cut it in the Premier League.
Mascherano and lack of spending power
There has also been criticism of Roy for selling players for low prices or not spending the money he received. Both are valid arguments to some extent. The sale of Mascherano for £10m below asking price was nothing short of bad business but the situation was forced on the manager by the players’ attitude, and the timing of Masch’s protest days before the end of the transfer window. On Aquilani, some have said the Juve deal was a bad deal for Liverpool as if he does well on his loan we will lose a great player and if he performs badly we will be lumbered with somebody we don’t want. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the Italian will do well if he stays fit and the £13m from his transfer will be a loss, but not as big if we had persisted with selling the player during this window. The value of an injury prone player without a great deal of match practice would have led to him being sold for even less in my view.
In the end Roy was left with an unenviable situation. With the ownership situation not sorted and no new money to spend on new players, this was always going to be a difficult transfer window. You could criticise Roy for being too soft and not standing his ground to get more transfer cash, but I believe no matter who was in charge, including Rafa, the Yanks wouldn’t have given the manager any money. He had to do the best with what he had, and he sold Mascherano with only a few days left until the end of August. He reacted quickly to seal a deal for Meireles while he attempted vainly yesterday to buy a striker. I think at times we could all be accused of expecting too much; I even yesterday recommended signing Arda Turan and a striker, without realising that in fact Roy didn’t even have enough for a striker. The Guardian said today that we had to offer both Lucas Leiva and Ryan Babel in a bid for Carlton Cole. The amount of money we had to spend must have been tiny.
Choice of Signings
Where I believe Roy can be criticised is the choice of signings. The jury will be still out on Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky for a long time, and I will not past judgement on them until they are given a fair chance. I won’t criticise however the purchase of Portuguese international Raul Meireles. For me, he is an essential purchase, a person who can direct play and control midfield; he was a greater priority than a striker and a winger. I will hold my hands up if the Meireles purchase doesn’t work out, but for me it really could be an inspired signing. There are other names that have been bandied around, we could have bid for Klass Jan Huntelaar, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Arda Turan or perhaps even Rafael van der Vaart during this transfer window, but the lack of funds have put paid to these ambitions. Even with the VDV situation yesterday, I don’t believe the Reds even had the £8m to match Tottenham even if they wanted to.
Fundamentally then, as Fernando Torres said today, the only real change will come when new owners are put in place, and the manager is not put under the tight financial constraints he has been working under since his appointment.
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Next transfer window permanent deal for Aquilani£13.5m, permanent deal for Insua£4.5m and a permanent deal for £2m, thats £20m to spend while still having the same squad we have now and Roy was apparently willing to sell Ayala£2m,Mavinga£1.5m,Lucas£7m and Babel£9.5m so offload these couple next window and we would have another £20m so thats nearly £40m and Roy might be able to get some of his targets and Carlton Cole will be coming for around £9m while Roy if allowed to spend the money could replace Babel with a quality winger in Ashley Young£18m and replace Lucas with a quality midfielder in Lassana Diarra£9m, these are Roy’s targets but he can’t really get them with the current ownership as even if we do offload these players he would probably only get about half of it after the Yank’s took their slice.There were apparently deadline day disscusions with Tottenham offering £8m for Ryan Babel but talks broke down Roy would be interested in a deal involving Giovani Dos Santos + a small sum of cash for Babel.
permanent deal for Degen £2m
If a new onwership coming in, i would wish they kick out Roy and the whole boardroom because they are incompetent for Liverpool. We need new onwership ASAP, if not, then Liverpool is doomed.
Roy has not improving the squad, and our squad is weaker as compared to last year. Surely, Liverpool will not finshed 4th this season with current squad, and Torres and co. will leave next season.
Well there was plenty of free transfers out there i wonder why Roy was unable to secure them, and if they offered to loan Gomez with an option to buy if matters may have been different.
Roy certainly failed in the transfer market, but i was happy with Rafas targets in Wilson and Jova.
I suppose not eveyone loved Rafa i was a fan and am missing him now at least he fought the board to get what he wanted.
@jason, really, our squad is weaker. Hmm Joe cole, Jova, Mierles, Torres returning to full fitness. How could you possibly say it is weaker. Sure we need a little time to gel, its basically a new team, new players, new manager, so remove head from sphincter then speak……
If we can sort things out on the pitch within the next for weeks i think we will be pleasanlty suprised at our postioning in the table. Remember, once cole comes back from suspension, and with the addition of Miereles who can hopefully reproduce his game that he displayed in the world cup, we will have many of the missing elements we had last year, especially with the loss of Alonso.
keeping the faith, i hope to be seeing vast improvements over the coming weeks, and all you doomongers will be eating your words….YNWA
silly article this one….wasn’t that bad a transfer window.
Rafa Benitez is not a genius, He’s far miles away to be a genius.
Roy started to kick out the dead wood which Benitez brings in the Club: Insua, Riera, finally Leiva is only a sub (I’m surprised that Rafa didn’t asking for the services of Lucas).
Konchesky? Solid left back with much experience and everyone Who knows football He’s much aware of Roy’s hit
Joe Cole? He’s hugely better than the injury – prone Aquilani
Raul Meireles? He’s considered one of the best box to box midfield in European Football by most competent observer
Poulsen?= Which Are Your problem with the danish? He’s a good defensive midfield: He’s a regular international for his country. Juve is doom and gloom: it’s not faulth of Poulsen. He will fit in EPL alongside with Meireles or Stevie G.
The only one to blame are the muppetes YANKS. Roy didn’t get to try a striker because muppetes grab the cash to pay interest on loan: FACT.
And alla the Die Hard Rafa Lovers /& Roy haters (because We are talking of the Rafa lovers: FACT) are simply ridicoulous: Roy has been working for just one month at the Club and He can’t be the subject of blames: You are ridiculous, dear, fewer, Rafa Lovers..ridiculous. At least You could wait to see new signs in action before insulting new Liverpool plyrs.. Yoiu are ridiculous.
And What’s the problem if We don’t get 4th place? IT’S A SEASON OF RE-BUILDING for the CLUB, and the only one to blames of this situations are your loved Rafa Benitez, and the yanks. Roy is working on the ruins left by your loved Rafa. FACT.
IN ROY I TRUST.
no excuse for not getting a striker as a loan deal would have done. i see mascherano is blaming liverpool lies “the told me i could go if they recieved an acceptable offer” AND
THERE IS AN EXCUSE FOR ROY, RAFA SHOULD HAVE ALREADY HAD A STRIKER BEFORE HE CAME
maybe if we didnt spend almost a week in intensive discussions to buy a less than average left back there would have been more time to open preliminary discussion for a striker
With the lack of money Roy wants to be 100% sure to find the right player.
He’s the manager, and He doesn’t want to waste MONEY EXCATLY AS RAFA DID.
Now is Rafa the genius, the answer to all problem? Wake up mates, RAFA IS THE MAN WHO TOOK 7TH PLACE: FACT. RAFA STARTED THE DECLINE OF LFC and NOW ROY NEEDS TIME TO RE-BUILD IT AND HE DOESN’T NEED STUPID BLAMES. IT’S NOT THE TIME TO POINT FINGERS AGAINST ROY. RAFA BENITEZ WILL RUIN INTER MILAN: FACT. EVERYONE WE’LL SEE IT.
IN ROY I TRUST.
Nice accurate posts, Kaleem & Joe. Rick, you are a tonsil! One day you will wake up, or grow up, and come to your senses & realise excatly what Rafa did for this club. Without him, we would never have seen the Reds play at Camp Nou! And now you are blaming him for Roy’s signings? You juvenile! Can’t you see what Benitez had to go through – lack of funds, owners lying etc? Roy is going through the same, and now it’s Rafa’s fault? Do you not know that we had more players at the WC than any other EPL club? Grow up, wake up, and smell the coffee.
Another idiotic post full of incorrect facts (& grammar) from Rick.
Liverpool was in decline BEFORE Rafa arrived. FACT (seems to be your favourite word?) You seem to have internet access. Why don’t you go & check where we finished up the season before last, and the seasons prior to that, and compare to where we were before Benitez arrived? And whilst you’re at it, check on our European record whislt senor Benitez was in charge?
The fans who support & miss Rafa are NOT having a go at Roy. We would just like ‘fans’ like you to appreciate the fact that Rafa also had tehse financial constraints. LFC have made a profit – yes, profit – in the last 4 transfer windows. Who do you think was teh manager of the club in 3 of those windows? You guessed it (I hope)! Rafa! So he also had no money to spend. As I said earlier, get a grip.
no excuse for roy not getting a striker and no excuse for rafa leaving him needing one, but an almost injury free season for our topplayers and we can win anything
This article has some pretty groundless and weak arguments, particularly with reference to Aquilani. I am absolutely stunned that he has been allowed to go out on loan (injury prone? just one long term injury wasn’t it?). There was a time (Ronaldo, Henry, Pires) when players were given time to adapt to the premiership. I feel this is a massive error by Roy.
Second, the signing of Konchesky shows how low our ambitions have become. I always thought he was the weak link at West Ham and Fulham, and now he is at Liverpool. What a complete joke.
I also believe there is something at the club stopping them buying a striker. Rafa had a deal lined up with a Fiorentina striker in 2009, only to have the plug pulled on it by Purslow (cue rumours about Rafa walking out). The blame lies beyond Rafa.
It’s also interesting the amount of people that say Rafa bought bad without realising that while working on a budget, Rafa managed to fill the squad with international players, 12 were on duty at the world cup. A couple more years would have seen more youngsters from the academy come through.
So in sum, after some early promise with the capture of Cole, the window ends with a whimper, again. And all after Hicks lying again by saying the summer window would be big.
Don’t you just love dumb americans that do not understand what this club means to people?
Torres will not make the same mistake next season i fear. Theres no way he’ll trust Roy to bring in class players, as others have said we needed a striker any kids junior club manager could spot that. I just hope Roy tells us that he didn’t have the money because if he did and he refused to spend it or left it to late we are in deep shit.
Not a bad transfer window. Would ave been crap if we got C Cole cos he aint better than Babel or Ngog! Lets forget him and never bring him into our conversations again! Would have kept Aqua for a season though as he could be easily used when J Cole takes a rest! Turan is still there for the pickings and we should be able to get a proper striker in January! Until then, IN ROY I TRUST!
YNWA!
Sick to death of hearing about Arda Turan and people dying for us to buy him. It’s the same with any player we are linked with by some shite forum. This Ricky Van wolfs winkle is next. No one mentions then until we are linked and then they suddenley become world beaters.
BTW, Roy did a great job so far. All the players, with exception of MAcherano were deadwood. Aquilani was a terrible signing who had chances but never did it. I was a fan of Rafa but that was £20m down the drain. If Juventus buy Aquilani for £13m, then Roy has got Miereles and Poulson for Aquilani. Great business!