Brendan Rodgers rolled in to Melwood this afternoon to give his verdict on the summer transfer deals.
Liverpool added three more signings over the weekend, which they announced earlier today.
Tiago Ilori arrived from Sporting Lisbon, next up was £15M man Mamadou Sakho - the imposing French international defender from PSG, before a season long loan deal for Victor Moses was announced by the club. Fabio Borini departs to Sunderland on a season loan, whilst out of favour Dani Pacheco made a permanent exit back home to Spain.
Rodgers declared himself pleased when speaking to the official website:
I'm obviously very pleased. The window this summer has been very productive for us. Sakho who we've brought in was probably a surprise for many people because he was highly rated at PSG and a French international player.
With the likes of him and Tiago Ilori, we've got one eye on now of course - you have to have a sense of the present and what we've got here are some really good centre-halves - but we're trying to build something here. Those two players, especially Sakho, can play in the team now, but we've got one eye on the future as well.
Rodgers also highlighted the important Victor Moses can play - and how he has seen first hand what the player can do:
We've got Victor Moses on loan and he's a young player that I've known from when he first came into the country. I had him train with me at Chelsea for a few weeks when I was a youth coach there. He was at Crystal Palace and we wanted to sign him at Chelsea, but he ended up staying at Palace, which was a good move for him because he played in the first team, did very well and then got a move to Wigan.
Sakho appeared to be the jewel in the crown and Rodgers was quick to thank the effort of the club in signing him:
I think it's a massive one. He is a player they were not wanting to lose, but he'd made it known he wasn't going to sign another contract and it's something that our people here at the club were very much on top of. It's great thanks to them, their hard work and perseverance that we were able to attract someone with that calibre.
Brendan Rodgers refused to be drawn on whether he was 100% happy with the size of the squad however, indicating Liverpool may have to do some more business in January.
We've certainly got more competition and as a manager you always want more, but we're more than happy with the business we've done. We've added freshness to the group. What we were looking to bring in was hunger - even though Kolo Toure is 32, he's very hungry to succeed. I'll be happy when the window shuts, to be honest, then we'll have all of our players - and we've done great business over the course of the summer - and we'll run with that until January and see where we're at then. I'm sure we'll look to strengthen again and finish off the second part of the season like we did last season.
Liverpool have spent approximately £45M on players and sold around £28M worth - giving a net transfer spend of approximately £17M.
Top notch management BR!!! Looking sweet for us this season YNWA
It doesnt matter wat ne1 says lpool twice the team they were last year they stand a good chance ov challengin
I have to say, I haven’t been this optimistic in awhile about Liverpool. To spend essentially 17m and get those 3 players is just fantastic. Wage bill has been heavily reduced which was long overdue. I can honestly believe in our campaign for the top 4 this season, and getting the fans on your side is half the battle. Was dubious about Rodgers at first, but I’m comfortable with him now. Right man for the job, delivered what he promised. Good times for LFC.
I think it’s been a pretty good transfer window, especially defensively now, and we have offloaded a lot of deadwood, but the one player I am really disappointed we didn’t go for is Erickson – at less than £12m he was a steal (especially when you consider what we paid for Allen) and he would have given us the alternative to Countinho who is a fantastic prospect and will be a great player but showed in the last game against United he is very young to be given the burden on his own of being the creative guy pulling the strings in attacking midfield. At his age and limited experience he is bound to be inconsistent and I worry we are expecting just a bit too much from him too soon. Erickson, though very young has proven at international and Champions League level he can play to a consistently high level and run the game linking up play, creating and scoring….and he is effectively going to play the Modric role for Spurs. Maybe when Suarez is back it won’t be such an issue but Erickson would have been a great addition.
Also I really think we needed to get another defensive midfield player to compete with Lucas. I know Lucas does a good job but he isn’t quite the player he was before his injury – just doesn’t seem to have quite the same mobility and energy – we should have gone in for McCarthy from Wigan in my opinion.
Neither Erickson or McCarthy would have broken the bank but would have seriously strengthened the squad and made this window excellent rather than pretty good.
We are better off den we hav been for a few years come on red men
Not bad shoppin could do wit another attaker
ESPECIALLY AFTER BORINI GOING ! lets hope he develops so we can bring him back or at least get our money back
Alberto is dross & Aspas isnt up to speed yet.Not happy about Moses getting game time over Ibe & Sterling,and after Borini going we now have only TWO recognised STRIKERS.If there is an injury to either,where screwed.
Sturridge, Suarez, Aspas. (3 strikers)
I dont call Aspas a striker.At the moment,know better than Borini.
If they can beat Man Utd, I couldn’t care less what you think of them. Results are results.
I agree that Alberto hasn’t looked great and Aspas has looked a bit lightweight, but it’s very early to judge really – need to give them a season to acclimatise to a much quicker and more physical league….I think they have the technical ability to develop into very good players. Saying that, as I said on another post here, for the money we spent on them we could have got Erickson! I’d have taken him over those two as I think he is much more a proven quality player.
Anyway, time will tell.
would not call any of these players marquee ayre, should have got half of the targets that were highjacked by spurs, seen that your scouts are doing there job for them…or you have a mole in the camp giving info to the enemy.
I agree about a mole inside Anfield ;-( And I also feel we need a proper NEGOTIATER instead of the IDIOT MD doing it.Net spend of £17 million pound,still could have done with another PROPER STRIKER COME WINGER ( YARMOLENKO TYPE ) But I am glad a lot of DROSS has departed,but not happy about TWO RECOGNISED STRIKERS AT THE CLUB NOW ;-( After letting Borini go out on loan.
Some people never happy
Rodgers just wanted 2 people to each position:
Strikers (Sturridge, Aspas)
Wingers (Suarez, Sterling, Moses, Ibe, Alberto)
Midfielders (Gerrard, Lucas, Allen, Henderson, Countinho)
Defenders (Agger, Sakho, Johnson, Enrique, Kelly, Toure, Skrtel, Ilori, Coates, Wisdom)
Goalkeepers (Mignolet, Jones)
We have plenty of players to cover each position, and the likes of Suarez and Moses can be employed as Strikers, similarly to how Sturridge can be employed as a winger. Our defence was what was lacking, and now look at it, it’s stacked.
I THOUGHT THAT – WHO IS THE ANFIELD MOLE ???????
“Liverpool have spent approximately £45M on players and sold around £28M
worth – giving a net transfer spend of approximately £17M.” Good business, that’s how you run a proper club, sell the crap players and replace them with better ones. Rodgers as a manager is growing all the time, been very impressed with him. In January with it being a world cup year Liverpool can pick up some good talents not being played like Sakho that wants their international spot.