Rafa Benitez led Liverpool to the Champions League with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. The Spanish manager, who achieved the feat in his first season in charge, remained at Anfield until 2010, taking charge for 350 games.
During his tenure, he acquired various players and sold various players. Benitez confessed that at the time he was looking at various players to strengthen his squad and had failed to land Stevan Jovetic, Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale.
“Under Tom Hicks and George Gillett, I wanted to sign [Stevan] Jovetić and he was £16million,”
“In my head, I was selling players and had £34 million, but was told that we don’t have money.”
“We went to play against Florentina and lost 2-0 – Jovetić scored both goals. I said that this was the player we wanted to sign but we didn’t have money.”
“I wanted to sign Aaron Ramsey when he was playing for Cardiff City, and we made an offer of £1.5million but Cardiff were playing in the FA Cup and wanted us to wait, but I told them that we had to do it, he was 17 years old,”
“When we went again to try and sign him, Arsène Wenger paid £ million, and we couldn’t sign him.”
“Gareth Bale, when he was 17 at Southampton, six months after we were watching him, Tottenham paid £8million, and we couldn’t compete.”
Stick to Football
As for Ramsey and Bale, they have since not only created a golden era for Wales, but also transformed themselves into world-class players at Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur respectively. There is no end to the delusion that if they had been serious about acquiring them.
On the other hand, Liverpool at the time were not as well organised as they are now, and there is a strong impression that the development of young players was not as well developed as it is now.
Therefore, it is possible that his talent would not have blossomed if he had moved to Anfield, so it is a ‘tall tale’.