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mermoid

Listed below are comments made by mermoid between Wednesday, 8th October 2008 and Monday, 21st December 2009.

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A European team for the 'noughties' 8:10pm on 21 Dec 2009 Rooney and Torres make the bench but there's no room for Messi? Beckham, Carvalho and Lahm in the squad at all? Farcical.
Man City will regret lack of ambition 1:06pm on 22 Nov 2009 Who cares about Liverpool's injuries? Chelsea started yesterday's match without Bosingwa, Carvalho, Deco, Ballack, Lampard and Drogba and no-one is bemoaning their "crisis".
Benitez on the brink? 3:08pm on 06 Nov 2009 "But I have sympathy with Benitez at the mo. The makeshift 11 he put out in Lyon did him proud, really."

Makeshift?
It was only 2 players off what most people would consider his strongest 11. Johnson for Kyrgiakos and Gerrard for Voronin.

It's silly to consider Aquilani's absence as anything other than Benitez's own making. You buy an injured player and he's out through injury! How unlucky! boo-hoo.
Benitez faces biggest test 4:16pm on 21 Oct 2009 Re: my own post at #300, I've just realised I made an error by including Djibril Cisse as a Benitez transfer. I merely looked at the dates on the ins and outgoings and while Cisse's transfer was completed shortly after Benitez took charge the deal was originally agreed by Gerard Houllier. So for that I apologise.

That means of Rafa's own buys/sales he's made a profit of around £10m net, almost entirely thanks to the sale of Alonso which brought in a £20m profit, which is why I refuse to accept that his buying and selling allowed the signing of Torres et al, as the Alonso sale came a full two years later than the signing of Torres.
Benitez faces biggest test 1:54pm on 21 Oct 2009 "75. At 10:04am on 21 Oct 2009, RandomMemorableName wrote: You lot are pathetic. The fact that your so eager to pounce on (a rare) run of poor form says it all. This constant tirade aimed at Rafa and his 'failings' in the transfer market are ridiculous. You cannot judge a player singularly in this situation, you have to assess the bigger picture. The fact that every player signed and sold by Rafa has been sold for a profit suggets he knows what he is doing."

Hmm. A bold claim.
Let's have a look, shall we?

Rafael Benitez has indeed made a number of signings he later sold at a profit, the most notable of which being Xabi Alonso, of course. Here's a list:

Carson £1m in £3.25m out = £2.25m
Alonso £10.5m in £30m out = £19.5m
Bellamy £6m in £7.5m out = £1.5m
Crouch £7m in £10m out = £3m
Sissoko £5.6m in £8.2m out = £2.6m
Arbeloa £2.6m in £3.5m out = £0.9m

Total = £29.75m profit

Not bad. A near-£30m profit on players bought and subsequently sold by dear Rafa.
But wait! Surely there are more than that? Surely he's signed and sold more than six players?! But... he couldn't have, could he? After all "every player signed and sold by Rafa has been sold for a profit." Have a look:

Morientes £6.3 in £3 out = £3.3m loss
Luis Garcia £6 in £4 out = £2m loss
Cisse £14m in £6m out = £8m loss
Gonzalez £4.5m in £4.2m out = £0.3m loss
Pennant £6.7m in £0 out = £6.7m loss
Leto £1.85m in £1.3m out £0.55m loss
Keane £19m in £12m out = £7m loss

£27.85m loss

So, indeed a bold claim... and a false one.
Overall, of players bought and sold by Rafael Benitez, he has made a grand profit of £1.9m and made losses on more players than he's made a profit. He's lucky Martin O'Neill priced him out of buying Gareth Barry because in that case he would have sold Alonso a year earlier for £14m and the figures wouldn't look so good at all. So, thanks Martin.

"Example: ith our limited budget - check our NET SPEND each year compared to those around us (including the likes of Villa and Spurs) - we couldn't have arrived at Torres without first making a profit on players like Crouch and Bellamy."

Yes, the £1.5m profit on Bellamy made all the difference in signing Torres. Buying/selling obviously made little difference since the "net" profit is negligible. You didn't sell Crouch until a year after signing Torres so I'm treating that part as absolute nonsense.

As for the net spend - http://transferleague.co.uk
04-09, Rafa's period in charge, Liverpool are 3rd. Behind Chelsea and Man City, ahead of Villa and Spurs. What exactly are you trying to claim here?

"The rate at which this squad has improved gets overlooked just all too often. Time and time again people fail to see that what we are chasing is not a stationary object. Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal - they are all improving. The fact is however, we are improving at a faster rate."

That is not a fact. Manchester United and Chelsea have been scoring consistently in the high-80s in points for the last 4 or 5 years. There is very little, if any, room for improvement beyond that. It is a lot easier for a team like Liverpool to improve from 68 and 76 points to 86 than it is for Manchester United to improve on the 90 points they scored last season. No team is going to finish the season on 100 points.

"We finished over 30 points behind the champions in Rafa's first year in charge. Each year we are getting closer. Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer."

The first part is indeed true. The second part... is not.
In Rafa's second year in charge you finished 9 points behind the champions on 82 points.
Third year - 68 points, 21 points behind the champions. Incidentally, the champions that year were Manchester United, who had finished the season on 83 points the year before, only a single point more than Liverpool. They went forward, Rafa's Liverpool took a huge backward step.
Fourth year - 76 points. An improvement on the year before, still less than he achieved in his second year.
Fifth year - 86 points. Yes. Finally, an improvement on the second year of Rafa's reign. It doesn't change the fact he achieved less in the third and fourth years than the second.

To summarise, you did get closer last year but to say you have been getting closer each year is clearly untrue.

Good day.
England cannot replace Rooney 2:38pm on 14 Oct 2009 @ 37. At 6:46pm on 13 Oct 2009, Emmnues wrote:

It is going to be Kaka's world cup in a final against Spain - I said it first...
___________________________________

May I ask how you know Brazil and Spain will be kept apart in the draw until the final when it hasn't even been made yet? Following the format of previous world cups, they could just as easily meet in the quarter-finals.

Impressive psychic powers.
Torres, Drogba or Rooney - who's the best? 5:21pm on 02 Oct 2009 Torres - gets frustrated with team-mates on occasion but rarely gets angry with opponents or referees. 9/10 - I think not: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_5499550,00.html

As for Rooney 9/10 for "staying fit" - he started only 25 Premier League games last season, and the same the season before. That is not 90% of games.
My teams of the season 12:27pm on 20 May 2009 Valencia was signed by Paul Jewell
Capello will keep England grounded 12:56pm on 08 Oct 2008 Why should Gerrard be instantly reinstated? When was the last time he actually performed for England? He was captain ('fantastic') against Russia and Croatia in the Euro campaign and look how that turned out. He played shockingly bad in both games!

Lampard played very well against Croatia, he has earned his place and deserves to play again.

"He could be restored alongside Frank Lampard in central midfield, even though the effectiveness of what should be a world-class pairing has been a constant conundrum"

where does this "should be a world-class pairing" idea come from? No team in the world would play two attacking midfielders as the lone CMs in a 4-4-2 formation, it doesn't work and there's no reason to think that it would. You'll never see Chelsea play Lampard and Deco alongside each other without a defensive midfielder, or Deco and Ballack or any other possible combination. For the same reason Gerrard and Lampard will never work.

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