The transfer window started off so promising with the signing of England Under 21 midfielder Jordan Henderson but since then things seem to have stalled.

A number of questions are still to be answered. What will be done with Aqualani? How many others will be sold? Can other clubs match their wages?

Jovanovic and Aqualani are on ridiculous sums per week and have never produced or delivered the alleged talent they possessed before signing for Liverpool. All managers have their flops but it would seem that these are Rafa’s two most expensive flops.

However, with the sums they are on will anyone be prepared to stump up the cash or do we keep Aqualani after his season long loan with Juventus and hope his outlay eventually comes good?

After all we’ve missed out on Clichy who has now joined Manchester City. The Charlie Adam deal is stalling to the point where I feel Holloway and Oyston are trying to bleed dry every penny they can for a guy that cost them £500k not too long ago.

Nasri is available and says he wants to win trophies and it’s not about the money. If the money is there, and it is, we should take a punt on him. Having just turned 24 he has a wealth of Premier League experience. He has the flair and creativity that we are lacking and can roam across the midfield teaming up with Gerrard to provide the ammunition for Carroll and Suarez.

Had Rafa not splashed £17million on Aqualani at a cost of approx £90k a week for 2 years this August we would have saved the best part of £26-27 million available for a transfer. While Jovanovic was a free transfer his wages are steep for a player that has not showed consistent form.

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34 responses to “Rafa’s two most expensive flops have cost Liverpool millions”

  1. Rockstar_Hubba says:

    lol, Liverpool won’t get Nasri, didn’t you read what he said? He wants to win trophies. That’s something that won’t happen in Liverpool.

  2. Redgie says:

    Ash Williams, what a load of bollocks.
    I suppose Fergie never made a duff signing… Veron @ £30m anyone. Torress, Alonso, Macherano, Crouch, Bellamy and more to mention all sold making a profit. Due to injury Aquilani had a shocking debut season, Hodgson was a total mug to loan him out for the season…

  3. rick says:

    Outstanding post mate.
    100% agree with your views.
    Aqua – Jova’s duo represents an expensive & memorable fiasco from Rafa and Liverpool are still paying the cost of their flops. Meanwhile, now We need to get through Adam’s deal and looking for a centre -back: absolutely.

  4. magnumopus says:

    Every club has flops… some more expensive than others. Each manager buys with the intent that they will not be a flop but shit happens! get over it and move on mate!!!!!!

  5. tony says:

    Bought into the media’s Rafa agenda have we? As you said yourself, Jovanovic was a free – if we paid £3million for him and gave him less wages it would still work out the same , so wind your neck in.

    Aquilani was pawned out by Roy Hodgson, someone you probably lobbied to be put in place to begin with

  6. frank says:

    you forgot Keane, Veronin,

  7. Darius says:

    Please just shut up, you an expert or something? Nasri to Liverpool? You’re having a laugh.

  8. daboy says:

    Talk about Rafas mistakes what about Hodgson Konchesky Poulsen and allowing the club to sign Jova and Cole on mammoth wages at least Aqua can play.

  9. Jevon says:

    im amazed by the obvious non Liverpool people on a Liverpool site. Nothing better to do.

  10. Tony says:

    Get the Manc adverts off here FFS!!!!!…..Alonso cost £10.7m and went for £30m, Torres cost £21m and went for £50m, Mascherano cost £18m and went for £22m, Reina cost £6m and is worth £25m, etc etc…….I think Rafa more than made up for any mistakes!!, I don’t think we are complaining about the stars Rafa brought into the academy are we???. Who brought in Borrell and Segura and KING KENNY????? errrrrm, Yes Rafa did!!!!!….Get the point?????

  11. rick says:

    The fact is that Aqua never proved his potential, in Italian Serie A too.
    Why Juve didn’t use his option to keep him at Turin?
    Why, if He’s a proven footballer with potential? Why?
    He was Juve’s no. 10, an internation player, but despite that Juve did not bet in him.
    Why? Instead of moving for a player of unproven ability to play in the middle of the park, Rafa should have put his efforts to keep Xabi at Liverpool, rebuilding his broken relationship with midfield maestro.
    Any Liverpool’s manager, past and present, He’s subject of critics about his transfers activity, Kenny too.
    I heard some arguing that Henderson is overrated, Adam’s price is too inflated, Stewart Downing is not good enough ecc ecc ecc. According to We, The Fans, no one is fit for LFC but Juan Mata, but any Managers still have to move on with their business.
    I truly respect Rafa bacause He’s a great Man with a great values Who reached great achievements for LFC, but saying He made some errors it’s not a tragedy which undermines Rafa’s status as Liverpool’s legend.
    Rafa did some big mistakes like every man on the earth: it’s not the end of the world saying that in an article.
    But I agree: move on.

  12. URS says:

    you can also add Degen to that list. according to his recent interview he earns 2.93m per year. he got 600K for the move, so that it’s at least 7 millions for 2 years without considering that club still had to pay part of his wages while he was on loan.

    Liverpool paid 20m for Mascherano and had to sell him 17 millions hardly a success.

  13. dave says:

    hmmmm…..Joe Cole..how much each week? Oh, sorry that wasn’t Rafa. How much did Houllier spend on rubbish? Anti Rafa nonsense being published again.

  14. rick says:

    The fact that Houllier & Roy Hodgson did some errors can’t remove Rafa’s bad decisions & errors.
    Like I say, every Man in the earth can make some errors, Rafa too.

  15. Tony says:

    Get the Manc adverts off here!!!!!

  16. Simon says:

    Utter rubbish

    Rafa was the only official at the club trying to hold things together when 2 yanks and their lapdog Parry were trying to tear it apart

    Boosting your hits with mindless Rafa nonsense, last time I ever visit this website

  17. Tony says:

    Liverpool’s website last month was hit by 4.6m fans and they viewed 102m pages …………i reckon 2m of them were Mancs…….ha ha ha

  18. habbab says:

    who was better than Rafa since king kenny? Rafa made the squad stronger. He made us challnge 4 da trophy, he brought cl trophy 4 good. He made our academy look beta. And most of ALL he was responsible 4 da second coming of THE KING! FUCK DA HOOLIGANS N TO HELL WITH ANTI-RAFA WANKAZ.

  19. Mike Roberts says:

    Jovanavic came to Liverpool after Rafa left , even though he made the deal …. If Liverpool didn’t have faith in Rafa and sacked him . Then why didn’t they cancel the transfer before he came to the club. Finger pointing going on here … Not a thought through article by the journalist . All managers have made some bad signings .

  20. rick says:

    Xabi Alonso’s saga was a big responsibility of Rafa, and one of his main errors of which Liverpool are still paying the cost.
    The lack of direction, creativity and quality in our midfield is truly evident and it’s hard to say that aquilani meets Xabi’s standards.
    Now He will be the Real Madrid Captain because He’s a great Man, a great leader and a great player.
    He could still be on Liverpool’s side but unfortunately Rafa’s resolve of replacing a master player with a huge bargain like Barry forced him out of the door.
    I want to make clear that my gratitude for Rafa for all his great achievements with Liverpool first team & Accademy is simply great and in my view He’s a good man (I can’t never forget Rafa’s tears during memorial service during Margaret Aspinall’s speech) but it’s unfair & difficult to say that He’s the only one Who did never make a wrong decision, although working with two american gangsters it’s never been an easy task for him.
    We’ll see at Anfield mate, for Liverpool – Bolton.
    The match costs my hard earned money but it’s always a nice pleasure to support my beloved Club and see some friends, when it’s possible to reach Liverpool from Italy.
    Good season to everyone.
    In Kenny I trust.

  21. Paul says:

    But he made us £40 million plus on Torres, Alonso, Macherano etc so lets not slag him off, how quickly some fans turn their backs on someone they once loved and someone who loved our club!

  22. Greg says:

    I have to have a go at the negative responses, or the ‘Negheads’ as I like to coin the phrase. Liverpool FC are lucky in my opinion to still be in the Premier league. Kenny Dalglish has produced nothing short of a miracle since taking on the Managers role from Hodgson. A good spoon of ‘reality’ is required for the ‘Negheads’ and as above in Kenny I trust. Worldbeaters overnight we are not, competing and fighting for every point, goal we now are.

    Wake up and understand our current position based on years of average players being lured to the premier league by teams with tens of millions of pounds as incentives. We are planning wisely now and not throwing good money after bad for very average players in a hugely over inflated market.

  23. rick says:

    Paul, no doubt that Rafa brought good things for the CLub, especially when We think to the Accademy’s development, but anyway Rafa himself did some mistakes too like every man on the earth.
    Meanwhile, no doubt that Houllier & Hodgson did their huge wrongs (particularly Hodgson, but I can remember average & expensive flops like Bruno Cheyrou during Houllier’s reign), no doubt that George & Tom were a disgrace, but Rafa too has his responsibilities.
    Although his errors, Rafa still is a great in Liverpool’s history, but He did some errors too: kind & simple, and no problem with Rafa.
    It whould be nice for me meeting our former manager in Liverpool’s streets.

  24. Kenny's Puma Boots says:

    Comment by rick
    2011-07-05 09:07:25

    The fact is that Aqua never proved his potential, in Italian Serie A too.
    Why Juve didn’t use his option to keep him at Turin?
    Why, if He’s a proven footballer with potential? Why?
    He was Juve’s no. 10, an internation player, but despite that Juve did not bet in him.

    Probably because They got a new manager who plays a different system.
    Much like Liverpool who got an imbecile as a manager last summer and liked cloggers and crap football, hence players with flair a la Aqualani were shown the door.

  25. Felderkirk says:

    That’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it? Suggesting Rafa cost us 30million for Aquilani? What was he gonna do – not replace Alonso at all? The fact is that his biggest mistake wasn’t buying Aquilani – it was losing patience with Alonso. If he’d even just apologised for his haste in telling Xabi that he was considering selling him, we might never have had to replace him at all. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that Alonso wanted to go to Madrid.

    But to suggest that signing Aquilani was a mistake is a little short-sighted in my opinion. It was at worst a panic buy due to the unavailability of other quality replacements for Alonso. And Aquilani was hardly given adequate time to prove himself before everyone in the media finally joined the anti-Rafa brigade and decided to paint Alberto as the poster-child for Benitez’s apparent shortcomings.

    You’d have been complaining if he hadn’t replaced Alonso at all. Or worse – if he’d brought in Barry.

  26. rick says:

    “Suggesting Rafa cost us 30million for Aquilani? What was he gonna do – not replace Alonso at all? The fact is that his biggest mistake wasn’t buying Aquilani – it was losing patience with Alonso. If he’d even just apologised for his haste in telling Xabi that he was considering selling him, we might never have had to replace him at all”.

    Feld I agree with You. I quote your words, because your words reflecting the biggest mistake in Rafa’s career.
    This huge error don’t remove all the good things brought by Rafa in six years (Pepe, Torres, Sterling, Shelvey ecc ecc ecc) but remains a bad bad decision by Rafa’s himself and an unfair threatment of Xabi which reveals an example of poor mismanagement from Rafa.
    One error doesn’t undermines Rafa’s career and achievementes but remains an error.
    In Add, there are the Yossi and Riera’s saga, with all the dirty laundry shown in public.
    Anyway, I firmly stand in my opinion: thanks, thanks, thanks a lot of Rafa for all the good things and good moments, but Liverpool (and maybe Rafa himself) needed a fresh change.
    Unfortunately, Roy Hodgson wasn’t that sort of fresh change oh What We Needed….

  27. redperth says:

    Biased article by a Rafa hater. Aquilani would have been playing and probably do some justice to his transfer fee/wage IF the idiot Hogson didn’t ship him out and bring Poulsen and Konchesky and Joe Cole.

    I guess it’s Rafa fault also Torres was sold for 50million or Alonso for 26 million which goes straight to debt repayment instead of new player?

    Jovanovic scores 1 goal every 2 matches before joining, potentially a good backup striker for Torres. Being free transfer with wage of 50k a week, that is only $2.6 million a year in wage. He turned out to be not so good but what about the likes of Marcherano, Reina, Torre and Alonso?

    Why can’t you just bloody give it a rest and just look forward? We have Kenny now. At least Rafa brought us number 5. Every manager will have bad buys, no one ever get it 100%.

  28. martin says:

    Sick to death of liverpool fans slating Rafa for all the ails of the world,some people seem to be transfixed by it.We all know mistakes happened,but there isn`t a manager in the history of football, who has had a blemish free career.Considering the constraints Rafa was working under and the fact he was being undermined at every juncture,I believe he performed miracles!He put us us back on the european stage and ok he never got us the holy grail,but he did make a good stab at it with the highest points total the club has ever amassed in a league season!Rafa was a great manager for liverpool. When we look back in years to come a lot of people will realise this too.

  29. dKopReds says:

    The manager will buy the players what he wants. It’s natural if the successor won’t use those players. Then among of us is easy to say those players is useless. I’am sure if Rafa still took charge, so he will use his players as well. Even I can’t understand why Ryan Babel can’t to be the key role during at LFC.

    YNWA

  30. wazio says:

    Who had control of transfers not rafa it was parry who wanted keane. He would never have let barry come in without alonso covering his cost. Now who would you wanna be playing for a team full of debt an 2 cowboys or the galacticos

  31. URS says:

    when you buy big you have consider a lot of things and minimize possible failure as much as possible. Aquilany had a big injury record, he only made 48 appearances in the league in 3 previous years. He was bought with a bad injury and missed the deadline set out by Benitez. Roma didn’t miss him at all qualifying for the CL that season. the man had some hype years ago but his talent never materilized and never will. He couldn’t succed in his own league which makes simple assumption that he isn’t good enough for more physical and fast EPL. There were some better and cheaper options that summer, e.g Parker whose style of play is closed to Alonso.

    It does looks like he will stay in Liverpool as nobody wants him, it won’t take long before his fans jump on his back.

  32. 'Will says:

    poor URS.
    Parker similar to Alonso?
    Hahahahahahhaha

  33. URS says:

    Will

    At least he became the player of the year, Aquilani can only dream about it.

    those who defend Benitez, check the anual total wages numbers of Liverpool for last 5 years with other clubs.

    He complained about lack of money but the wages grew every year and were as much as twice higher than what Tottenham paid in his final year.

  34. Felderkirk says:

    Don’t really see what this has to do with Tottenham mate. It could rightly be argued that, in Rafa’s final season (the season where our wages were higher than Spurs’), the wages were higher because we possessed a higher standard of squad than the London club. It was only a complete capitulation on our behalf that prevented us from really taking 4th place. Our 2-0 win against them at Anfield without Stevie or Torres (but with an impressive enough Alberto) was proof that we still had the edge on them. Granted, in the last season I think they may have edged past us, but it’ll be a sad day when we have to compare ourselves constantly to Tottenham.

    I won’t argue with you that we were paying stupid wages at the time (and still are in places) but that squad had stormed to 2nd place the season before, and it was only the players arguably losing faith in the way the club was being run that produced such a bad following season and eventually saw Rafa being forced out. We wouldn’t have bat an eyelid about wages if we’d won the PL and consolidated on that position. But even then the 2 cowboys were in charge.

    I suppose what I’m trying to say is that H&G were the fundamental problem – not Rafa, or wages. And let’s face it, if Rafa hadn’t brought Alberto along – we’d never have seen his amazing girlfriend!!!

    And then Roy came along and decided to turn us into Fulham.