Stick Me For My Riches

Sir Alex finally has a go back at Rafa and his "facts", and I thought the comments too good to simply include as part of the paper round up, so here they are, in a post of their own. Couldn't find a video of it, so these snippets from the papers will have to do, cobbled together from, The Guardian and The Independent:

"I was amazed when I saw his claims," Ferguson said. "I talked to some people in the sports technology department and said: 'check that out'. I am sure I had not spent that much money. I worked out that in the last five years Liverpool had spent £24m more than Manchester United."

"The amazing fact about them is that they have used 60 players in the reserves this season. We have signed 18 players in the last five years but eight of them are young and there is a balance about us. We do things correctly.

"We like to develop our young ­players but other clubs are maybe different. Rafa has a different philosophy from me about producing players but that is the great thing about football: everyone has a ­different way of doing things.

"You will see Rafa produce an incredible spending spree – that is an absolute certainty now he has signed a new contract. They talk of a recession but there will not be one at Liverpool. He is well ahead of us in spending in the last five years. You can expect a big spending splurge at Liverpool."

All the papers have different figures, The Guardian identifying the problem as being that, "exact figures are problematic because some transfer fees are undisclosed", but the figures are all similar (with one exception, that I'll come to in the paper round up), and all show that Rafa spent more, even when player sales are included The Guardian suggests (though other papers differ here), "Ferguson and Benítez have net spends around the mid-£80m mark". Whichever way one looks at it, Rafa portraying himself as hard done to when it comes to money is absolutely ridiculous and I'm glad that Sir Alex has finally responded, rather than continuing with not commenting on the substance (or what their is of substance) of remarks.
Another fact I thought was interesting, reported on Sky Sports News this morning is that since Rafa became Liverpool manager he has given 4 homegrown players their Premier League debuts, for Sir Alex in the same period, the figure is 11 - almost three times more.