Reports that a Juventus representative held talks with Liverpool boss Rafa Benítez have seen renewed speculation that Xabi Alonso is on his way out of the club, but once again the Spanish midfielder has denied any knowledge of being on his way out.
Juventus director Jean-Claude Blanc did meet Rafa, but the clear signal coming from Melwood is that Rafa would not even consider for a second anything less than a “massive” offer for Xabi, according to the Echo. Italian paper Gazzetta dello Sport said on Monday that Juve had offered £12 million and had expected to finalise the transfer next week, but it won’t be done at that price, if at all. And reports from Liverpool said no formal offer had been made.
Alonso himself was asked by the press back home about the latest claims but said nothing had changed since the last time he said he wanted to stay at the club. Speaking to the Catalonian paper Mundo Deportivo he said: “This is nothing new, there is always speculation about me. I know perfectly well what my situation is.”
He says the speculation wasn’t down to him, and there were no signs of Liverpool actively seeking to sell: “This has nothing to do with me. If the club wanted to sell me, I would know about it. If the club want to cash in on me and buy other players, I would accept it and look for another club, but they haven’t said anything to me. For that reason I think my future is still with Liverpool.”
In an earlier interview he said he would expect Rafa to be honest with him if was looking to sell him: “He has never said that he wants me to leave. If he thought that way I would prefer him to be honest and say ‘Xabi, we are thinking about other players and you are not going to play that much,’ then I would look for a different option. But he still thinks I can play an important role.”
It’s not been Xabi’s best season as a Red. A broken metatarsal saw him out of action for a spell, and his return was marked with some below-par performances and a difficult fight to get a place in the midfield from Javier Mascherano and Steven Gerrard. But Rafa’s change to a 4-2-3-1 formation for the tail-end of the season saw Gerrard pushed further forward and Xabi strike up a partnership with Mascherano.
When Xabi’s girlfriend Nagore was about to give birth to their first child, son Jon, the new dad understandably wanted to be there for an event many fathers would put on a par with Istanbul, Paris, London and Rome (twice). Unfortunately it meant he missed the second-leg of the Champions League clash with Internazionale at the San Siro, and Rafa’s comments at the time drew a lot of attention.
Rafa said: “Xabi wanted to stay behind. He had said he would come if things were okay, but we couldn’t wait, wait, wait, and I now have to use my squad.” Rafa felt it better to prepare for the game with the players he knew were guaranteed to be there, at the time the rest of the squad flew out Xabi still didn’t know how the birth would go. After Xabi’s earlier problems with form the media saw this as a sign that Xabi’s Anfield days were over.
But the following week Xabi refuted this: “I will always accept the orders of my coach and I don’t think that anyone can question my professionalism, but there are occasions in life when some things take priority over sport and that was definitely one of them. I know I was criticised but it’s over. For me that is forgotten now.
“I was convinced we would win in the San Siro anyway as in the Champions League we always seem to be a different team from how we are in the League at home. I have a contract until 2012 and I’m quite satisfied about my future.”
26-year-old Xabi signed a new contract last summer. He cost the club £10.5m from Real Sociedad in Rafa’s first transfer window at Anfield. He says he doesn’t want a move, and Liverpool haven’t been advertising him as available. With that in mind a £12m offer is clearly some way short of a reasonable figure.
Rafa will need to sell to fund all of his ideas for new signings this summer, ideas including Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry and Udinese’s Andrea Dossena. Villa have turned down a £10m bid for Barry from Liverpool, deny an increased £12m bid has been made, and say he’ll cost £15m.
There is a £2m gap between Liverpool’s valuation of Dossena and that of his club. Liverpool are only willing to pay £6m for the 26-year-old valued by Udinese at £8m. Udinese’s coach Pasquale Marino admitted yesterday that Dossena looked Anfield-bound: “I think that a deal with Liverpool for Dossena is on the way. Everything is going smoothly and the player has given his consent because he wants to test himself at an important club.” Udinese’s sporting director Pietro Leonard reportedly held talks with Liverpool officials earlier in the week. Knowing the player wants a move should help keep his price down.
One player likely to help add at least a bit of loose change to the relatively low transfer coffers for this summer is John Arne Riise. Some reports claim Juventus are interested in the Norwegian full-back, although other reports claim these are wide of the mark. After reportedly dismissing the idea of a move to Newcastle, Riise is more realistically linked with Schalke 04 in Germany, as well as Spanish sides Atletico Madrid and Villarreal.
Riise still hasn’t got what looks to be a rather large hint that his Anfield days are over. He’s not been offered a new contract, the current one expiring in a year, and rumours say his name was included as an option in the first bid the club made for Gareth Barry. But he’s going to wait until the summer, which in football terms has already started: He told Nettavisen: “I am uncertain. If I don’t hear anything before the summer, I will have to consider my situation. We have got to hope that we reach an agreement with the club about what will happen.”
He wants to stay, but admits he can’t be too sure of this happening: “A club change is not impossible. I have said that I want to stay where I am, but there have been many rumours in the newspapers about many big clubs. It’s fantastic to be linked with such clubs. At the same time, I am playing in a position which many clubs are trying to fill.”
He can of course dig his heels in and wait until January before negotiating a more lucrative deal to leave on a Bosman, but doing that could leave him in a position where he rarely gets a game, and that might finally make his mind up for him: “I am truly enjoying myself where I am, but the situation is very uncertain at the moment. The most important thing is that I get to play regularly.”
Although the Riise link to Juventus seems unlikely, they are reported to have also asked about Peter Crouch’s availability. They’ll have been told he’s available for £15m. He’s also got a year left on his current deal, but doesn’t want to sign a new one if he’s going to be used as infrequently as he was in the season just gone. Other clubs linked with Crouch are Aston Villa, Manchester City (who still don’t know who will be manager next season) and Portsmouth.
Goalkeeper Scott Carson has been linked with Fulham, with Aston Villa reluctant to match the £
10m fee they agreed with Liverpool last summer for the England international. Also linked with Fulham is right-back Steve Finnan, a great servant in the past four seasons for Rafa but facing competition for his place from Álvaro Arbeloa and new signing Philipp Degan.
The Reds have provisionally announced two pre-season fixtures. First up is a trip to Glasgow to play UEFA Cup runners-up Rangers at Ibrox on July 26th. Then they will travel to Spain to face Villareal on July 30th, a game that was agreed as part of Pepe Reina’s transfer in 2005. Before that they will be in Switzerland for their customary training camp.
Liverpool’s young left-back Emiliano Insúa is expected to line up for an Argentinean under-23 side in a friendly tonight at the Nou Camp. They will play a Catalonia side as part of preparations for their Olympics bid, and former Reds hero Luis Garcia is expected to line up for the home side, which excludes any players called up to Spain’s Euro 2008 squad. Javier Mascherano is also expected to travel to Beijing as an overage player with the Argentine squad for a shot at a gold medal.
Alonso is our best ball passer. If we let him go we are losing a lot.
Also I think if we were to sell his pricing is well below his real value – Carrick and Hardgreaves – 18-20 million – Alonso is far better than both.
If we are really going for the title next season – Alonso should stay.
I agree Alonso shoukd not be sold at any price though crouch Kewell riise pennant carson should be sold off for quaresma, barry,alvez and villa
Red Dawn, it would be nice to sign the players you have mentioned but combined they would cost at least £80M. If Rafa sold Crouch, Riise, Pennant, Carson, Alonso, Voronin & Finnan, he would only raise approx £58M, I can’t see Rafa being given the rest by the Yanks, they are skint and would have to borrow the money.
it seems that the Hicks Gillet saga is the first thing we have to get rid off We need someone who will be ready to splash money because the way the things seem to be I dont like it that we have to sell what we have and buy new players That we dont now if they will setele in our team I say keep those that we now that in the end of the day they will perform bring on two fullbacks one striker and one left and one right wing and then we can challeng for the 19 let DIC contol our club
I think that Alonso is staying put and Barry is getting brought in to play on the left wing with Bentley coming in to play on the right.
Does anyone know how expensive Bentley is? I thought he was substantially more expensive than Barry, but most fans seem to think he is ‘affordable’. I have doubts about that, especially after reading several sardonic comments about Degen from Dortmund supporters. Paying peanuts seems to be the only criterion in Texas for buying players this summer…
@Pierre: Not sure how expensive he is, but the Echo ruled us out of a move for him: “Reports that Blackburn’s David Bentley also features on Benitez’s wanted list are wide of the mark.”
“I think that Alonso is staying put and Barry is getting brought in to play on the left wing with Bentley coming in to play on the right.”
Will this mean Rafa will Babel as a striker next season? Babel has said in the past he’d like to play upfront to emulate Thierry Henry.
*use*
That’s all good news!
I think that Bentley is being priced at about 18 million.
” Will this mean Rafa will Babel as a striker next season? Babel has said in the past he’d like to play upfront to emulate Thierry Henry. ”
Gurdeep – It may well mean that he is going to be played as a support striker to play off Torres. He has been better playing on the inside than on the wing, he also seems to not only prefer playing in the center he also seems more at ease playing in the center.
The Egg – yes, I have read something like that about Babel preferring to have a more central position. And in his second year in the PL he could indeed start emulating Henry (what a prospect!?). Since Bentley might not be an option (thanks, Jim, for the info), who would be the left winger we might buy? As for Barry being the right winger, I have doubts about that, he is too slow and predictable. Hope it won’t be the Espanol guy whose name I forget.
Incidentally isn’t Bentley a right-winger? Of course he is!
Sorry I’ve got right and left wings all mixed up, I realize now: Barry on the left, Bentley on the right, Babel in the centre. Looks good…
that means mascherano and gerrard centre, i like the sound of stevie being played properly again
Xabi to leave would be an interesting departure for Rafa.
Who can forget the almost father-son relationship throughout Rafa’s first season and notably in the Champions League Final. Xabi was the man Rafa went to to pass on his technical ideas, not the captain Stevie G.
To lose Xabi would suggest he no longer needs his midfield-general. I can’t see it – unless the money was so good he could go out and buy Essien (though not for his technical nouse but for his drive to keep going and lift the team)!
I think, and hope, that Juve simply spoke to the club to buy Riise. Claudio Ranieri knows Riise from his spell at Chelsea and knows he would be an ass, sorry asset 🙂 in their return to the CL as do Villareal and Atletico who enter the competition for the first time. I can’t see Claudio buying Crouch but…..
Our lack of cash, however, is the most concerning or disconcerting thing for me.
Leave our transfer wishlists to one side for a moment and think about Rafa’s transfer game of russian roulette.
Go through the big teams and add Tottenham and maybe Everton if you like. Look at who they’ve spent money on and how much they’ve spent. Ask yourself how many have been great, good and terrible buys.? And ask yourself whether the media and so-called experts have criticised the manager fairly.
Then think about our club and ask yourself: how much room for manoevure does Rafa have in terms of transfer budget? And how much room for error will Rafa have compared to the other managers/clubs who will make one or two poor-signings out of the four or five brought in? Can you imagine the abuse Rafa and the club would receive if he/they had spent £15m on Anelka but barely played him, for example?
With Chelsea you can list untold number of poor buys and Tottenham and others likewise. Rafa’s had a couple but overall has not and will not have their budget to spend or waste. Yet the media and the fans will be calling for Rafa’s head if one or two signings don’t make the grade, regardless of the budget involved.
I fear for Rafa next season because for some if he doesn’t run close in the league or win it he’s a failure. Yet he’s operating with so many (metaphorical) hands tied behind his back it’s a surprise the team gets anywhere near the others at all.
PS If Rafa wants Dossena he’s clearly seen something to make me sit up and take notice, as with Skrtel. But It does lead to questions when none of Milan, Inter or Juventus or even Fiorentina now they’re in CL seem interested when a top-draw player like he’s suppose to be becomes available. But then again we can’t afford to get involved in a price war so yet again Good luck to Rafa in his ‘poundland’ search……though it was never suppose to be like this. Snoogy Doogy indeed!!
I think that Rafa has had enough time to learn about how to be successful in the premiership. That’s why I’m confident in him regardless of the cost of signings.
He certainly hasn’t mentioned problems with transfers to the media yet.
Is it possible though to fight a credible campaign on all fronts next season?
we have quality midfielders in the club.why source for more?rafa must know that the rotation policy is not working.Barry does not worth 15m.Xabi is way better than him and his partnership with mascherano is phenomenal.Xabi must stay.
Here’s an interesting link, albeit from ‘News of the World’ about likely transfers.
http://blogs.notw.co.uk/sport/2008/05/xxxxxx-xxx-rafa.html
And here’s the comment by ‘ash’ (an old acquaintance of ours) about the link above in ‘News’, which sheds some light on former ‘ash’ posts on this site. This is disgraceful stuff, such venom and hatred:
Ha ha, if berbatov becomes available all the big clubs will be in for him, why would he go to liverpool, out of the title race way before christmas, only start playing when there is no pressure on them, and always looking at europe to save there season. Real madrid, chelsea and manchester united have the biggest pull, united and real madrid because of there history and the trophies they win and chelsea because of the money they can pay. Sorry but liverpool are no longer a world class club.
guys guys…
Xabi is an excellant passer of the ball. I really think he is a gr8 player for us, if only if he scored a few more goals there would not be all this speculation.
If we sell him i think HAMSIK would be a fantastic replacement, you just got to see him on youtube, the man is amazing and 20-years old.
looks like we may already have dossena, and if we land these 2 players and BENTLEY i think we will have a strong team next season
@Pierre: It might not be the same “ash” we’ve seen on this site, but whoever he is he sounds like a bluenose!
what the hell…what did I do?
If it was another ash that heaped venom on our reds in ‘News of the World’, I apologize, ash – there could be lots of ashes after all. Just check the identity of the poster in the article above about transfers. A Chelski ash could have abducted your identity, wouldn’t surprise me from these f…
Pierre, there was also an ‘Edward’ posting on that site which wasn’t me!
What is happening now?
This is getting so frustrating, does Rafa really have to wait
to sell players now before he can buy??
Why is the ownership situation suddenly all silent?
Why Hicks gave that sky interview then and not now when the season is finished..?
Rafa wanted players signed this month or as soon as possible, well now we’ve got Paul Ince’s son!, Degen and maybe Dossena.
Degen is average squad player, even at free you would expect him to sign west ham or blackburn, not liverpool.
Has anybody seen Dossena play? Can’t say much but is he third or fourth choice left back in italy..?
Age 26, not in the euro sguad and only one cap for italy..Let’s hope he’s better than Riise or Aurelio.
Other players we have been linked: Barry, Taylor, Rame, Valencia.
Where are the match winners and quality additions Gerrard and others are now publicly asking? What is worrying is that
we are not even linked to any player who would go straight to our first eleven and make us better..
John Steele if you read this there somewhere, i would appreciate your thoughts of the past three months on and off the pitch..
@Jim
Given that how much we spend, or don’t spend, in relation to our fellow CL contenders is to be a contentious issue until the season starts, and even after it begins, is it worth setting up an ‘alert’ or table of alleged spend by our rivals and ourselves? May help inform our thinking as the season starts.
So for example, Spurs have already bought Modric for next season at about £15m. Chelsea bought Bosingwa and another player – whose name slips me at the moment – for many millions more. United, Everton, Tottenham and ouselves are rumoured to be after certain players – but we’ve only ‘bought’ Degen on a free so far.
A ticker or table on spend would be a useful way of collating figures based on who ever you think we could trust on transfer figures.
Is it possible? Do you have the time or inclination to do it?
Just wondered.
@midlands-red: Might be worth someone adding it to the forum, I can always make it a ‘sticky’ post, if someone wants to start it!
http://www.anfieldroad.co.uk/forum
All this transfer nonsense gives me unneeded stress!
If you think back to how we played this season, we were undefeated in the league against Chelsea and Arsenal, and severe misfortune and stupidity cost us against Man Utd. We are very very close to a full on title assault.
The games that cost us were draws at home and some away, world class stars are not necessary to turn these draws into wins. We just need to tweak certain areas, and make sure the motivation and belief is there throughout the season, and distractions off the pitch don’t hinder us. We need sound, quiet background management, the players and manager need a bit of space to get on with it, and we will produce.
The people who are out there listing their favourite Pro Evo or Football Manager signings and then throwing random prices at them are living in dreamland. Villa £20m, Alves £20m, Queresma £15m….get real, if we sign Gareth Barry for a part exchange that WILL be our big signing of the summer.
Fans shouldn’t start getting all starry-eyed and dreaming about all these ‘world stars’ who are mostly over rated anyway, your only setting yourselves up for disappointment,
We have an incredibly strong squad as it is, we need only a couple of steady signings. We don’t need world beaters now, we have a brilliant forward duo of Gerrard and Torres, between them they can match any front two. With others developing, and for once having a settled squad, we could really go for the league next year, and it won’t be down to paying mega-bucks for another star, it will be down to determination in the squad, and a hungry desire to win.
Think about the games we slipped up on, Wigan, Birmingham, Middlesbrough…all we need to turn these draws into wins is a small change, not necessarily personnel.
My point simply is this, it’s quite obvious we are not going to spend ‘BIG’. I feel like we don’t need to, but those fans who are baying for stars are only going to be disappointed, and i just hope that those same fans are not going to be getting on Rafa’s back halfway through the season,
Until this boardroom situation is sorted, we are having to sell to buy.
@Jim:
……and there was I trying to avoid the forum, although it’s a good read!
With owners who promised that we would match manu, and we are actually in reverse, i do not think in the slightest that we will make a Big Money signing, forget Villa and Alves Barry will be as far as it goes, if he does come to us that is…
St.Chris,
I think you are completely wrong and i’m amazed how you seem to accept this situation.
We have every right to demand and want significant spending now. That’s what we were promised or mislead to think 18 or so months ago. We sholud have money after another succesfull euro campaign and our net spent was not much last summer.
We should expect three quality signings anything than that is a massive dissappointment for every liverpool fan. Okey, we dont need to dream about the stars like villa, but we should expect Rafa the get strong backing to get quality players to replace those he is selling.
if we sell riise, pennant, voronin, crouch, finnan, carson and (kewell) that means we are buying 5 players plus maybe barry and one goalkeeper. The key is that those who we sign are quality.
We dont’s have incredible strong sguad as it is like you say we have, Manc or chelski maybe has it.
It’s true we have a strong sguad and great spine in the team. torres, babel, gerrard,mascherano,centre backs and reina. But the cold reality is that most of the other players in our sguad or even in our first eleven wouldn’t even get to the bench in chelski or manc or ars.
So now we have a change to either strengthen or watch as man utd, chelski and arsenal get stronger and the rest like spurs will get nearer to us. For example, spurs have spent more than £30m in last six months. modric £16 and in january hutton £8, woodgate £7m and gilberto.
You say we don’t need world beaters now, when we have torres and gerrard, but isn’t that exactly what we were (not turning those draws to wins)are missing. We need more players who can win us games than those two.
Jussi,
I fully understand that we have not been given what was promised. Rafa does not have free will to buy who he likes, i know this.
This is the situation we are in though, and until the boardroom mess is sorted, what’s the point going on and on about more and more money.
For the time being, we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt, and that doesn’t involve huge transfers, unfortunately.
I’m looking at it in the ‘cold reality’, which is that we have two owners who won’t go in the same room as each-other, never mind sanctioning big money deals. My point was people need to stop saying we ‘have’ to sign Villa, or we ‘have’ to sign Quesresma (who in my eyes is a load of crap anyway). These kind of deals are NOT going to happen this summer, so why do people keep mentioning them? They are living in dream land.
Jussi you also say we need more players who can turn draws into wins, do you know that we had 6 players who scored 10+ goals this season? No other team has that. We scored 117 goals too, why do you feel we need another goal scorer? We need replacements for those players who have gone stale, Riise is one example. Don’t forget that we had Agger injured throughout the season, which is a huge loss. If we had him we would of been much closer, and maybe we wouldn’t of slipped up as much.
Also Jussi, you are wrong to think i ‘accept’ our current status. You’ve misunderstood what I’m saying. I’m trying to say that we need to deal with the harsh reality we find ourselves in and make the best of it. I want the owners out as much as any other fan, but going on about money that isn’t coming is useless and pointless. We need players with experience, how many league winners do we have in our side? (Out of any league)…No more than a couple.
One last point Jussi, you say “we should expect three quality signings” …”Okay we don’t need to dream of Villa”. If that is your opinion then what is a ‘quality’ signing in your eyes? I’m not going to judge Rafa until i see his signings perform, he’s rarely let me down before.
Speaking on a BBC radio 5 football show, Stan Collymore, Mark Bright and journalist, Brian Woolnough (Daily Star), have just said that Liverpool have not a chance of winning the league next year.
Mark Bright – Liverpool were 11 points behind Manchester United this year. They cannot close that in a year. Arsenal and Chelsea are more likely to run them close. (I paraphrase of course)
Stan Collymore – Liverpool need 6 new players. 4 border-line world class players and 2 world class players. The club doesn’t have the money so there’s no chance.
Brian Woolnough hedged his bets as some journalists like to do.
So there you have it from the ‘experts’. We can talk as much as we like. Build up our hopes. Talk about how few games we lost and how close we were this year than previous. But the long and short of it is that we just don’t have the quality or the money to fill the gaps.
So, if they’re to be believed, we can sell as many players as we like to shuffle the pack and bring in others but without bringing in the ‘stars’ next season is another write off re. the Premiership if not Europe.
Are the so-called experts right? I guess this is one for the forum. But I’m not enthused to start it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Rafa is a great guy, as well as a top draw manager, for sticking with us because I feel sure the job now is not what he envisaged at the beginning.
Midlands-red: it would be too easy to keep reminding the ‘experts’ of how mistaken they often were in their former predictions. Arsenal was said last year to be sure to struggle to finish in the top 5-6 because of Henry’s transfer and the youth of the team, see how close they were this year. LFC has the best midfield in the country, the best striker (barring the Manure Portuguese who hopefully is going to sell his soul to Madrid), three great centre-backs (if Agger is fit again come August), and several world-class young players (Babel, Lucas, etc) who should improve a lot after their first year in the PL. Rafa said that set pieces had been the main problem this year. With some good reinforcements (Dossena seems to be one for the defence), plus presumably Barry and some more attacking options, who knows? There are so many imponderables in the PL, the most important thing is an excellent start until Christmas, and, with confidence very high (and hopefully plenty of Manure injuries), we might just nick it in May next year. Plus, in August we might be funded by Arab big money. C’mon our reds!
Re Dossena, living in Malta and it being so close to Italy I have a good idea on the italian league, having said that the reviews from all the media in Italy concider Dossena as one of the best attacking defenders in there country, well one could argue that he was not been chosen to play in the euros. Italy is well known for its defenders and no other country can match thair defensive Capabilities, apart from that Fiorentina and Roma are very well known to not over spend on the trunsfer market but still manage to snach very good footballers from the market and they rarly get it wrong (eg Luca Toni), and Fiorentina are after dossena all out, there only problem is that in Italy a lot of players change hands by means of swops not by cash transactions that is were Liverpool have a good advantage becoused they are offering cash,
If dossena can settle in england, learn the lenguage and Acclimatise to the PL, he will be a hell of a good buy.
Rafa is seeing an opportunity, its not a big risk concidering who dossena will replace
well mr Collymore to start with should have been a world class player coming to liverpool he never turned out to be, I do not think his talking is better then his playing.
Thanks for the light on Dossena, LFC Malta. Who knows? Even Degen’s career might be resurrected at Liverpool
St. Chris,
It’s true a might have misunderstood your point.
And i agree with you that we just have to accept the current situation. I just hope we would soon find the final solution (what Rafa suggested) about the ownership of the club. And
also positive news regarding transfers..
You told we scored 117 goals and 6+ players scored more than 10 goals wich is great, BUT in the premier league we scored 67 goals, 35 of those by Torres & Gerrard(24+11)+how many assists alone by Gerrard?) and the rest together only 32. Voronin 5, Crouch 5, Babel 4, Benayoun 4 and Kuyt only 3. Thats five forward players scoring only 21 together!
Agger’s injury was showing but it’s no excuse, other teams suffered because of injuries maybe even more than us last season. chelski and arsenal..
Like you i’m behind Rafa whoever he signs(he’s proved that with Mascherano, Alonso, Skrtel, Agger, Reina, Torres, Babel etc.) but it would be good that he would get proper backing now and buy more of those than having to settle for the second or third choise targets or buy bosman players again: (bellamy, pennant, aurelio, voronin, degen..).
It was interesting to realise that our wage bil is much less than chelski and manc and aprox £15m less than arsenal..
You ask what is quality player in my opinion?
Actually the more i think about it, i have started to be more confident: It’s simple, if we sell those 5-6 players, we will replace them, those 5-6 (crouch, pennant, riise, voronin..)are all good players so if new players are better than those we sell, they have to be quality. And that would make as much stronger. Barry is quality and i’m happy if he’s coming, no matter what happens with alonso. Also quality players that might be available this summer(i don’t mention unrealistic dream signings like kaka, messi etc. or centre backs, wich we don’t need now). Here’s one list: Bentley, Mancini, Chiellini, Bale, Behrami, Vargas, Amauri, Aquilani, Vucinic, D.Milito, Nasri-(arsenal), Modric-(tottenham), Alves-(barcelona?), Huntelaar, Zambrotta, Dos Santos, Silva, Villa, Drenthe, Marcelo, Lisandro Lopez, Quaresma, Luis Fabiano, Riera, Nico Krancjar, Jesus Navas, Gilardino, Bosingwa-(chelski unrealistic fee!), Menez, Ben Arfa, Benzema, Saviola, Berbatov, Mario Gomez,
Riise- Dossena
Alonso- ?
Finnan- Degen
Crouch- ?
Voronin- ?
Pennant- ?
Kewell- ?
Itandje- ?
+Carson, Quthrie, Leto(no need to replace)
Jussi,
That’s a good last post. I’m also impressed by your list of potentials, although I’m strongly apposed to the Queresma possibility, in my opinion he’s one of the most overrated players in world football.
I would love us to sign Silva, if available. Valencia finished pretty poorly this year so they may have a bit of an exodus, Silva would be an outstanding player for us, if he can handle the physical treatment and poor non-Valencia-esque weather!.
Yes, Silva might be a great signing…I have never seen Dossena but hope he’s as good as Vargas or Chiellini. Seems now that Dos Santos is going to Tottenham and we can forget him also.
I wonder where they get the all the money?
They have never been in the champions league, they have less income than us in all fronts, smaller stadium etc.
Modric £16m, Dos Santos £11m, Hutton £8m, Woodgate £7m, Gilberto £3m, Rocha £4m, Kaboul £9m, Boateng £5,6m, Gunter £1m, Bent £16m, Bale £5-10m. Thats about 90 million pounds in one year!! And the media constantly write us spending big..
St. Chris,,
I forgot Quaresma,,
I think he would be a good, potentially a great signing, but
overrated if his price is more than £20m. Manc chosed Nani ahead of him and Queiroz knows the Portugal based players quite well..Still i think he’s much better than what we have now, Pennant, Benayoun. I’ve seen him play many times also in national team and what is suprise, is that he takes almost all the freekicks ahead of Ronaldo!
For me the most overrated player in world football is Joaquin.
Liverpool:
Rafa publicly several times asked to back him and act quicly in the transfer market. Sign the players now, this month (may) as soon as possible…Captain Gerrard and others asking and hoping publicly for investment in transfers.
Told to: Sell before you can have money to buy!
Signed: Degen: £FREE
Paul Ince jr: £FREE
Out: Kewell £FREE
Alonso ?
linked: taylor, liam fontaine, ramsey, dossena, barry, inler, riera, johnson, bentley, downing, s.garcia, behrami, hamsik
Others:
Modric- tottenham £16m
Nasri- arsenal £11m
Bosingwa – chelsea £16m
Gilardino – fiorentina €15m
S.Keita – barcelona €14m
Garay – Real Madrid €10m (+plays next season in Real Santander)
Dos Santos -tottenham £11m ?
Behrami – sevilla ?
Alves – barcelona ?
Silva -barcelona ?
today Goal.com only RUMOUR: Vargas strongly linked to sign for Fiorentina for €15m or €12m plus one of their player Caccia.
He’s been the best left back in Serie A for the last two seasons.
I remember us being heavily linked him in the past, have we now missed him because he’s to expensive? He’s spanish speaking so would probaply fit in better than Dossena. Does Rafa think Dossena is better or CHEAPER option? Apparently Fiorentina has beated Real Madrid, Juventus, Roma among others for his signature.
Chiellini and Grosso are ahead of Dossena in Italy’s euro sguad, (for his defense, have to say both quality players).
There seems to be so many quality players potentially available for transfer this summer, Villa, Silva, Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Vargas, Alves, Lahm, Nasri, Milito, Huntelaar, Mancini, Quaresma, etc.
So,
Enjoy the summer and remember to mark over the name of every quality player we’ve been linked in the past,(post Hicks&Gillett, now we are linked to cheaper options: in Rafa’s carefully pointes words, the right players not necessarily expensive’s) once they sign for one of our rivals.
David Villa ( Highest preference to get!),David Silva,David Bentley,Gareth Barry,Tomas Ujsfalusi ,Micah Richards- These are the players that the Reds should get, Villa being the top priority,nuff said
Liverpool wouldn’t have any problems buying whichever player they wanted under DIC ownership. David Villa could be bought with loose change.
haha…that was a joke right…
Dubai are a business too you know?
Well,Anfieldroad.com wont be online and having bollocks writing comments if any players Liverpool wants to bring in with loose change regardless under anyone’s stewardship
@ModusOperandi
Yes DIC are a business but they know that to make money you have to invest in assets like David Villa which they can easily afford, no joke and no borrowing !