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*Official* English Football Season 2010-11

Ikki

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
GingerFurball said:
Xabi Alonso had captained Real Sociedad to 2nd place in La Liga, won Spanish player of the year, and helped Sociedad qualify out of the Champions League group phases while Benitez was winning titles with Valencia - that's a classic case of a foreign manager coming in and signing a player who he knows extremely well despite him not being a household name. See Wenger signing Patrick Vieira for another example.
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And Nihat won the best foreign player of the year award that year. Come on, the Don Balon award is an award only between Spanish players. He had a very good year, so did Sociedad and they gave it to him. It did not put him on the level he became. Santi Cazorla won it in 07 and Valero won it last year. The year after Sociedad also finished 15th, which is when we and the other giants of football Everton went after him.

Sounds like we're arguing despite agreeing. I think it's a **** article because Sid Lowe is claiming that signing Torres was a gamble, which is a ridiculous thing to argue. I'm not arguing that Benitez didn't improve any of the players he signed.
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No one said Benitez took unknowns to stardom, but he took players with promise and those same players became some of the best players in the world in their positions, with help from Benitez. These were not purchases that were no-brainers or without risk or what have you. Especially for a player like Xabi who on the face of it doesn't look like suitable EPL player as he is not a physical player.

It's not a ridiculous thing to argue re Torres at all. Maybe you disagree, fine, but it is not ridiculous. We didn't have much money and we needed a 20 goal a season with player. Upto that time, you couldn't really call Torres that. What he is now, is certainly one of the best forwards in the world. It is highlighted in that article: Ferguson himself didn't see him worth that risk. So I am not sure what you're saying here. He was not a sure bet, hence a gamble. And your rubbishing the rest of the article on that is even more silly. It's not like Lowe loves Rafa or Liverpool.
 
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BoyBrumby

BoyBrumby

Englishman
GingerFurball said:
As much as I hate Allardyce, it's not really fair to hold his spell at Newcastle against him.

The guy who appointed him sold up almost immediately afterwards, Mike Ashley came in and ran the club like a spastic and they've got woeful fans.
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Ashley's not an idiot tho. If BFC had been getting results he'd have lasted longer than he did, Keegan or no Keegan.

He's always been a chippy **** whose teams play ploppy football, but now he's borderline delusional too.
 
Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Ikki said:
It's not a ridiculous thing to argue re Torres at all. Maybe you disagree, fine, but it is not ridiculous. We didn't have much money and we needed a 20 goal a season with player. Upto that time, you couldn't really call Torres that. What he is now, is certainly one of the best forwards in the world. It is highlighted in that article: Ferguson himself didn't see him worth that risk. So I am not sure what you're saying here. He was not a sure bet, hence a gamble. And your rubbishing the rest of the article on that is even more silly. It's not like Lowe loves Rafa or Liverpool.
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Yes it is, Torres was one of the top strikers in Europe at the time. Calling his signing a gamble is idiocy, and justifying that stance because of Sir Alex Ferguson completely ignores Ferguson's signing policy over the past 5 years. Ferguson only spends big money on promising youngsters, or proven Premiership performers - Torres fitted into neither category, which is why Ferguson didn't pursue him.
 
Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
BoyBrumby said:
Ashley's not an idiot tho. If BFC had been getting results he'd have lasted longer than he did, Keegan or no Keegan.

He's always been a chippy **** whose teams play ploppy football, but now he's borderline delusional too.
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From memory, his results weren't awful, it's not like he had them marooned to the bottom of the table. If Ashley isn't an idiot, he's done a fine impression of one while he's been running Newcastle.
 
vcs

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
It's not a problem to give Benitez credit for his good signings (Torres, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, arguably Benayoun and Kuyt). The problem is there's been precious few of them. At Liverpool, he never managed to get the "final piece" to take them from a good, solid team to one capable of dominating. He wasn't good at integrating attacking signings into his team and usually ended up messing with the system. I remember in 2006 when Liverpool finished with 80+ points and the FA Cup, he went and bought a number of bargain-basement type players (seemingly just for the sake of it) who were all failures and set him back a couple of years.

I haven't read the article, but if Sid Lowe is arguing that those good signings by Rafa (amidst all the dross) makes him anywhere close to a success in the transfer market at Liverpool, he's deluded.
 
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Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Absolutely atrocious stuff in the 15 minutes I saw there. Only moment of genuine quality was Piquionne hitting the bar.
 
Ikki

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
GingerFurball said:
Yes it is, Torres was one of the top strikers in Europe at the time. Calling his signing a gamble is idiocy, and justifying that stance because of Sir Alex Ferguson completely ignores Ferguson's signing policy over the past 5 years. Ferguson only spends big money on promising youngsters, or proven Premiership performers - Torres fitted into neither category, which is why Ferguson didn't pursue him.
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The striker who scored 13 and 15 goals in the two previous seasons was one of the best in Europe? LOL the same one who never scored 20 league goals in a season before Liverpool? Your argument re Ferguson's spending is also hard to believe. So Ferguson spent 18m on Someone like Anderson (only 2m less than Torres) because he wants talent and decided to forgo "one of the best strikers in the world"?

Moving on. Can't wait for United game.
 
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cpr

cpr

International Coach
Ikki said:
It's not a ridiculous thing to argue re Torres at all. Maybe you disagree, fine, but it is not ridiculous. We didn't have much money and we needed a 20 goal a season with player. Upto that time, you couldn't really call Torres that. What he is now, is certainly one of the best forwards in the world. It is highlighted in that article: Ferguson himself didn't see him worth that risk. So I am not sure what you're saying here. He was not a sure bet, hence a gamble. And your rubbishing the rest of the article on that is even more silly. It's not like Lowe loves Rafa or Liverpool.
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Well, using your criteria of including all competitions when you describe Gerrard as a 20 goal a season midfielder like you've done before, Torres was a 20 goal a season striker for Athletico, in a mid table side (finished 7th and 11th those seasons), and his ability was widely recognised, with him being one of the hottest young strikers in Europe n all...
 
Ikki

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
You're right, when I mention Gerrard as a 20 goal a season midfielder, I am talking about all matches and Europe. Because, even that, for a midfielder, is unbelievably good. No one really looks for a 20 goal a season, in the league only, midfielder because they hardly exist. Last year Lampard scored 22 but that's pretty rare.

But no forward worth his wages is "one of the best in the world" if they've never scored 20 goals in their league. It pretty much means they're barely in the top echelon of forwards in their own league - depending on the season of course.

Torres scored 91 goals in 249 games at Atletico (0.37) which is not that good, frankly. He's played less than half that many games at Liverpool (120) and has scored 73 already (0.61). Pre-Liverpool, Torres was a fine talent but largely unfulfilled. To give you a comparison, Darren Bent has a better SR whilst he was in Charlton, as he currently does in Sunderland, and is only slightly worse than Torres-Atletico whilst he was at Spurs.
 
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