With Daniel Agger rumoured to have turned down a £50k a week a contract, as he pushed for one worth £70k, Rafa Benitez has apparently been informed of his summer transfer budget by the Liverpool Chairman.
Once again, it seems that Rafa will be forced in to player sales – and remains the manager trying to claw back the Premiership with one hand tied behind his back.
Last year’s biggest summer signing has now departed and a large chunk of the money spent on him has been returned to Anfield – so where has that gone to?
Either way, as part of his new contract Benitez had insisted that he should be better informed about his buying power rather than the normal guessing game. While the figure won’t have us up there with the United, Chelsea or even Man City’s of this world, Rafa can now begin for the summer clearout.
Speaking yesterday Rafa said:
“Every single year it is important to sign good players, the right players. This year will be the same.”
“We know we have better players than before and it will be more difficult to find better players than we have now.
“But still we have to do it.
“We are working very hard during the whole season, looking and watching players. I think that we will be ready.”
“We are not talking about names and money,” added Benitez.
“We are working on targets and we will try to do things as quickly as possible and as cheap as possible.
“More or less I have an idea (of how much money will be available). Clearly we have to work hard and maybe we will need to sell someone.
“We’d have to sell players to increase the money we’ll need, I think so.”
Daniel Agger and Ryan Babel are two players widely tipped for the Anfield exit door.
We await the publication of Liverpool or (Kop Football Ltd’s) accounts this summer with interest. It appears the club are now paying more on interest to the banks than on new football players.
We need:
1) David Villa/Tevez
2) David Silva
3)Zhirkov (fantastic little full back)
All we need is just another strike to partner torres!
Rafa needs a board that can pump the money into the Club.
Time for Hicks & Gillett to go!
We should NEVER have allowed Hicks & Gillett to get their hands on our club in the first place….They call our great sport SOCCER!…They probably still do!…That’s all i needed to know!..lol
How can anyone expect us to compete with the likes of Man U and Chelsea if we only have a fraction of the money to spend that they have. A massive club like Liverpool having to sell to buy is ridiculous. However, it looks like Agger is leaving, which is a huge disapointment, and Lucas should go aswell, but not Babel. He could become an important player for us, afterall he is still very young and N’gog should stay aswell.
If we are really going to compete with our rivals we need new owners who give Rafa proper amounts of money to spend. You cant get a class squad for peanuts.
Personally, I don’t think we need that much in terms of reinforcements. We have plenty of permutations that cover the back four and midfield. Of course if Agger goes then this will be a big blow, but it will be his loss if he does.
I think the key area we need to strengthen is up front. we need a replacement for Gerrard to play between the lines that is capable of linking midfield and attack and being a good foil for Torres. This player also needs to weigh in with some goals. Yossi may prove to be an option in this role, however, I think we need more of a goal threat from this position than Yossi gives. In an ideal world I think Teves would be perfect, but the chances of us getting him are very slim. It was obvious in the first leg of the CL semi with Chelsea that Gerrard wasn’r fit and couldn’t escape the attention of Essien. We may have caused Chelsea more probs in that game if we could have changed things at half time. A player like Teves has the trickery as well as brute force to engineer some space in that much coveted no mans land between our midfield and their back four.
i think if we sign a good forward like yakubu and get rid of torres and then sign a great winger like ryan giggs or ronaldo we will have a chance of finishing 2nd next year.come on you red men.
Rafa’s wasting his time at Liverpool if he has to sell to buy.
I am a diehard liverpool fan and i’ve never gotten what my fellow kopites have against Lucas. Honestly he is not as bad as people say and i doubt if Benitez will let go of him.
I don’t think he has been as bad as some people make out. Some reds like to have someone to blame, and this year Lucas has taken the flak. (Mind you his red card against the Blues in the FA Cup didn’t help his cause)
One thing you must have to remember,keep the good player as a young like Agger and Babel,if not it will cost you a lot that you can’t even think about it and offload those rubbish player like N’gog, lucas.
I have to agree with the others..Lucus, Dossena, i’d even go as far as Abelloa need to go. I like Agger and my boy Skirtel. Bring on Tevez and Ribery..That would be ideal. Just need someone to cover for when Lonzy gets injured and like Terje said, maybe Gourcuff for midfeild…That just sounds Mouthwatering…lol.. Bring on the New Season!
So we have to sell players? No problem, Rafa is used to the seasonal summer transfer headache anyway.
Let`s start by offloading the likes of Pennant, Voronin, Dossena, Lucas and Itandje. That won`t bring in to much money but it`s a start.
If Agger leaves, well, too bad for him.
We need another right back, and Glen Johnson looks good enough, at least he`s stronger than Arbeloa. And he`s English!
In midfield we should offload Lucas and replace him with either Barry or a more attacking central midfielder like Gourcuff. The latter would provide much more creativity and goals/assists, but Rafa is a cautious man and possibly will bring in the more defensive Barry.
We need another right winger. Lennon is highly overpriced so that probably won`t happen. More likely is one of these three: Valencia`s Joaquin, Dortmund`s `Kuba`, or maybe even Wigan`s Valencia.
And, Rafa may choose to sell Babel as well, which leaves us in need of a replacement. There are many potential players for this position, but Downing should not be one of them. We need a player with a different style than Riera, not another left-footer for that position. Ribery would be ideal, but hey he`d be ideal for any top european side.
And, we need another striker. Torres is haunted by injuries and N`gog is promising but inexperienced. Voronin will leave, so Rafa will probably replace him with a striker that can play both as a target man and in the hole behind Torres (if needed). Not to many players fit this profile, but Wolfburg`s Dzeko could be interesting.
Rafa needs to forget about wingers and concern on strikers