The League Table of shame

by Jason Darby | Friday 27th November 2009

Over the past two seasons, Liverpool have been outspent by 13 Premier League clubs (3 of whom belonged in the Championship last season), investing a grand total of just under £2M in improving the squad, approximately 1% of the investment Man City have had and a fraction of the investment that Aston Villa and Spurs, the other clubs aiming to join the top four have had.

Despite enormous income from Champions League football, Liverpool’s money has been sieved away from squad improvement, and our estimates indicate that approximately £55M has been frittered away on a combination of expenses and enormous bank interest repayments.

Money, effectively, wasted.

Current Premier League Teams

Net transfer spending since May 2008

Man City	£215,090,250
Aston Villa	£74,608,700
Spurs	£58,606,500
Stoke	£45,421,150
Sunderland	£32,026,650
Wolves *	£18,449,700
Fulham	£16,220,250
Bolton	£15,686,250
Hull	£14,324,550
Birmingham *	£10,715,600
Chelsea	£9,865,650
Burnley *	£6,421,350
Everton	£3,337,500
Liverpool	£1,921,500
Wigan	-£14,284,500
Arsenal	-£19,001,500
West Ham	-£21,902,900
Man Utd *	-£24,831,000
Blackburn	-£30,099,800
Portsmouth	-£52,465,500

* Burnley, Birmingham and Wolves spending includes one season of Championship spending and one in the Premier League. Manchester United’s figure includes an £80M income from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Despite assurances that Liverpool would have a healthy transfer budget of approximately £20M this summer, Liverpool actually turned a profit of £500,000 from transfers in the summer. This was on the back of some £70M created by progression in the Champions League, TV revenue and prize money for finishing Premier League runners up.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Good custodians?

Thanks to TransferMarkt, Statto and BBC for providing comprehensive transfer spending for all clubs.

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hoopspur
These figures are constantly massaged and displayed in the way shows the worse light on the club. Tottenham have sold players during the same period that have included Berbatov, Keane, Bent and Zakora for £64m.

http://www.anfield-online.co.uk Anfield Online
Looks like the Spurs fans finding the figures difficult to swallow. Yes you sold us Keane; Bent, Zokara and Bassong left and Berbatov went to United, but unfortunately buying Palacios, Gomes, Defoe, Keane back, Modric, Bentley, Pavluychenko, dos Santos, Corluka, Crouch, Bassong, Kranjcar, Naughton and Walker amongst others far outstripped the amount you brought in.

Felly
As a city fan I am hopeful that we will replace one of the Sky 4. I have to say I’m a bit gutted it looks most likely to be Liverpool.
glen
well this is a new trend which will probably be the norm from now on with the economy floundering world wide. with our debt load we have no other choice.
will
This summer we bought:
Kyle Naughton – £5m
Kyle Walker – £3m
Peter Crouch – £9m
Sebastien Bassong – £10m
Niko Krajcar – £2m
Total: -£29m
We sold:
Zokora – £7.75m
Gunter – £1.75m
Bent – £10m
Chimbonda – £3m
Boateng – £4m
Total: +£26.5m
Net spend: -£2.5m
Last season we bought:
Corluka – £8.5m
Gomes – £10m
Keane – £15m
Defoe – £15m
Palacious – £12m
Pavluchenko – £14m
Total: -£74.5m
We sold:
Robbo – £3.5m
Keane – £20.3m
Gardener – £2.5m
Malbranque – £7m
Kaboul – £5m
Berbatov – £30.75m
Total: +£69.05m
Net spend: -£5.45m
Therefore our total net spend was: -£8m
If you also factor in the fact that our highest earner is only on £19.5m for life of contract whereas players like Gerard and Torres will cost a combined £52m over the life of their contracts and you can see the real difference in spending between the two clubs.

http://www.anfield-online.co.uk Anfield Online
First off, your net spend is +8M according to your figures.
And straight away I can see you have forgotten David Bentley (understandably) at between £15M and £17M and Luka Modric again at around £16M.
Therefore even going from your figures and adding those two players it comes to at least £40M.

Billy Green
The resiging of Chimbonda has been left out despite him being bought in Jan 09. Wasn’t that Dos Santos lad from Barcelona bought during the 08-09 season as well? And that Bostock lad Spurs nicked off Palace, he was signed last year I think.
will
You’re right, I also forgot Giovanni Dos Santos.
So…
Bentley £15m
Modric £15.8m
Dos Santos £4.7m
Total £35.5m
Makes a grand total of £43.5m approx
http://www.anfield-online.co.uk Anfield Online
As thrilling as this tangent is, and all the figures are from an independent source, I think the figure most visitors to this website are interested in are this.
Liverpool.
£1.92M spent in 2 years.
For the Champions League riches, Premier League prize money, TV money, worldwide shirt sales etc. That is abysmal.
Especially next to over £50M paid in unnecessary bank interest.

Deano
Interesting figures, I’d be interested to know what the figures are since Rafa took over. I’m sick of hearing figures bandied about accusing Rafa of squandering 200M. Even our old players (Grobbelaar most recently) are clambering to jump on the band wagon !
King sensai
Rafa has took alot of slaggin from all media Sky etc even fellow football managers not fit to lace his boots namely Sam Aladice fat head. and shamefully David Moyes.They frequently sit with Sir Alex planning what next to say to bring down Liverpool fc and our manager.
We can only hope our present poor show both on and off the field comes to an end very soon or we can expect a long road back to keep up with the big spenders at the top.
Oh David Moores what have you done sellin to the yanks!
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Tony Dunn
Misses out key pieces of information like wage bills and what was the club like at the time the analysis began.
I am a Villa fan and we have spent the second most BUT from a very poor starting point so we needed heavy investment. There was very little saleable, with the exception of Barry, so our net spend will be high as a result of a period of chronic underinvestment (relatively speaking). Chelski also look miserly on that list but had invested so much in the preceding period that this is highly misleading.
Liverpool have a number of players in their squad that have cost £20m+. Our most expensive players cost £12m. The key measurement should be the cost of the squad less net money raised from player sales over the last, say, 8 years or so (i.e. revenue from player sales less the cost of that player).
Rafa started his time with a club that had just won the CL, and not an ageing club, so his wheeling and dealing has taken them backwards IMO.

http://www.anfield-online.co.uk Anfield Online
Couple of things Tony.
We have one £20M+ player. Not a few.
Rafa was the manager who won the European Cup.
Entirely agree with your point about Chelsea/Man Utd. They had already had teams who were capable of winning the Premier League. Liverpool need investment because they needed to push on to win the title. This hasn’t happened. Villa, Spurs and Man City have all spent because they want to push on to get in the top four.
The last two years Liverpool should have been invested in if the club wanted to go on and win the Premier League. That investment has not been forthcoming and the media, and their anti-Rafa bias, consistently falsify the amount Rafa Benitez has had to invest in the club.
Villa are fortunate in that they have an owner is committed to trying to support the manager, to attempt to get them back up to the top.
Liverpool’s owners are bleeding the club dry.

CulCul
Can you please explain where you came by Liverpools figure?
Very interested to see how the figure was achieved?
Have you included the sales of fringe players etc?
Imran
The owners arn’t going anywhere unless some rich fella’ throws massive amounts of cash at them.With the worldwide recession one would have to be mad to even partly buy the club and also take on it’s debt.The owners are smart people who dangle a carrot at us fans whenever things get tough letting us believe that something positive is happening behind the scenes.
More then the current owners it’s David Moores who should be interrogated like a criminal that he is for selling our great club to a bunch of cheating and lieing men that know nothing about how the fans feel.
samuel charles
cut all this crap out about spending , spurs might have recouped a huge recoup on over rated players like keane and berbatov but the point is the manage or has been given if not all of back to re invest in the squad, ask yourself …… has rafa,,,, not at all, no way,,,, why do you think it is always one or two players in at liverpool and if not more going out?
give up this crap that liverpool are big spenders, they are not, bottom line,,, these owners are 99.% the cause of the big problems at this club..
samuel charles
think of this, agureo is odds on to go to chelsea, villa, to barca, silva to real madrid, and yet again we miss out on the marque players and there are some fans think that this yet again will be all rafas fault,,,, wake up liverpool fans and the fucking owners when are we going to invest in some real talent, oh,,, but sorry i forgott rafa ‘s to blame for everything
Neil
I blame RAFA for his team selection but most of all the yanks for bleeding our club dry.
samuel charles
well said neil, im a huge rafa fan and although im right on his side, he has made like all humans do some errors, he isnt perfect but then other managers who all these fair weather liverpool fans want are not either, you seem balanced in your view, you like myself blame rafa for some things, thats life, but i blame the owners for 90% of deals falling through, dragging out the staduim lies, not helping in media reports making our club look worse then newcastle. its been a bad, very bad 2/ 3 years under their guidence.. hence if i could get rid of them, god help me i would i swear it,,, i hate them so much
samuel charles
morning all… what are we going to hear now about gillett selling his bell centre and ice hockey team, he has just made a profit of around 180 million, but as the sales go, he actually has just made a total windfall of around 330 million uk pounds, SO WHAT ARE GOING TO HEAR NOW,,,, he is in a real position now, does he invest to reduce the debut, or does he reduce some of the percentage of debut, or does he buy himself out, or does he build some are start building the new anfield, he has to do somthing now as we now he suddley has or indeed can operate with more power due to more finance,
WHAT IS THIS GUY GOING TO DO…..
samuel charles
invest for f**k sake will you you f**king pair of yankie c**ts,,,,
there are two good pros out there who need a new challenge, they will almost be heading for the world cup, van der vaart can play in 3 different roles, he can do it all, just needs to bed in somewhere. as for huntalaar he too is a great pro, struggled with the pre – madona crap at ac milan, doesnt get a look in, was at real madrid but agian like van der vaart didnt go down with him at all, thats sounds good to me that they couldnt or didnt fit in at that crazy club, both of these guys are young enough but with great european knowledge, they have both got enough about them for the prem, get them both on loan deals and add them to the squad, they will be wanting to get into the dutch team, so use this as getting results form the both.
reina
johnson carragher agger insua
mascherano aquilani van der vaart
gerrard
torres hunntalaar