Liverpool FC Forum

by **GYBS** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:16 pm

Rafael Benitez given £30m Liverpool war chest

Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent

Rafael Benítez will be given at least £30 million to spend on new players this summer as he embarks on his mission to restore Liverpool to pre-eminence in English football after signing a new five-year contract.

The Spaniard retains a slight hope of overhauling Manchester United in the Barclays Premier League this season as well as making another serious challenge for the Champions League, where Liverpool and the three other English clubs will discover their quarter-final opponents this morning, but he is also building for next season. His scouts are compiling reports on several wingers, including Aaron Lennon, of Tottenham Hotspur, and Antonio Valencia, of Wigan Athletic, as well as looking for a centre forward who can fill the void left by Robbie Keane’s departure.

The Liverpool manager was criticised for selling Keane back to Tottenham in January and not replacing him, but the minimum £10 million fee raised in that deal has boosted this summer’s transfer budget to £30 million. The club’s American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, have also allowed Benítez to reinvest any money raised by selling players such as Andrea Dossena and Philipp Degen, and offloading Jermaine Pennant and Andriy Voronin, who are on loan at Portsmouth and Hertha Berlin respectively. Further funds could be generated from prize money in this season’s Champions League.

Another priority is to secure the long-term futures of several of his squad and, while the priorities are Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt, Álvaro Arbeloa and Fábio Aurélio, whose deals expire in 15 months, Benítez has already pledged to give Fernando Torres a pay rise. The Spain striker will be offered an improvement on the £90,000-a-week, six-year contract he signed when he joined from Atlético Madrid in 2007, reflecting his status as one of the best strikers in the world.

Benítez inquired about Lennon, 21, during negotiations in the deal that took Keane to Tottenham and his interest has increased with the youngster’s impressive form in recent weeks, but other candidates, such as Valencia and David Silva, the Valencia midfield player, are under consideration. He is also casting his net wide in search of a centre forward, but David Villa, Silva’s team-mate, is out of Liverpool’s price range and is in any case expected to move to Barcelona or Real Madrid.

Under the terms of his new contract, which is worth £4.75 million a year, Benítez will have far greater control over transfers than last summer, when his bid to sign Gareth Barry from Aston Villa was vetoed by the board. But Hicks was eager to emphasise that the manager will have to work with a chief executive when a replacement for Rick Parry, who is standing down in the summer, is found. “I sat down with Rafa a couple of months ago and he made it very clear that he knows a manager can’t have control over the transfer budget,” Hicks said. “He has had his frustrations over the last five years but he will make the recommendations about which players we sign and the new CEO, the owners and the board will make the final financial commitment. And that is the way it needs to be.”

Benítez has secured written assurances that add to his power at the club. He has been promised overall control of football matters, including, significantly, the youth academy, which has been outside his remit. These concessions from the board were instrumental in his rejection of overtures from suitors such as Atlético Madrid, an Italian club and an unofficial approach from a third party claiming to represent a Premier League club, thought to be Chelsea or Manchester City. Contrary to popular belief, he did not receive nor encourage an approach from Real Madrid, who, with Benítez committed to Liverpool, are expected to try to entice Carlo Ancelotti from AC Milan.

Other reports in Mirror have Rafa been given 40 mil plus player sales and CL money so maybe a decent bit of money to spend , the question is who do we got for if it is around 40 mil ?

Ins

Silva 20-25 mil
Johnson 10 mil
Lennon 10 -15 mil mil
Owen - free ?

So maximum spend of 50 mil ?

Outs

Voronin - 9mil poss ?
Pennant - 3 mil ish ?
Dossena ? - 5 mil ?
any kids - 3 mil ?

by **Ciggy** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:17 pm

Rubbish!!!!

by **Dundalk** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:20 pm

Lennon just signed a new deal with spurs

by **Sabre** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:21 pm

The journo is speculating.

Rumour mill material.

by **GYBS** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:26 pm

Ok ignoring that it might be rubbish - it might well be true as well - im more asking which players do you think we should be looking at .

by **Reg** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:31 pm

Into the Rumour Mill for you, sonny............ :laugh:

by **Sabre** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:32 pm

Primary targets:

A top striker, and a top right winged player.

Secondary targets:

Right Back, Another left midfielder (Sorry Babel), an attacking midfielder better than Lucas.

Names I'd like to see linked to Liverpool, Eto'o, Henry (Radomir Antic has said that they're very selfish players but they're quality what is what we need upfront), Villa (seems very unlikely), Ribery, Silva, Alves.

Only names of the calibre of the ones mentioned can improve really the squad as it is now. And with 30M we can get one, or two if we're lucky or we get an aged player like Owen or Henry.

by **ConnO'var** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:45 pm

Sabre wrote:Primary targets:

A top striker, and a top right winged player.

Secondary targets:

Right Back, Another left midfielder (Sorry Babel), an attacking midfielder better than Lucas.

Names I'd like to see linked to Liverpool, Eto'o, Henry (Radomir Antic has said that they're very selfish players but they're quality what is what we need upfront), Villa (seems very unlikely), Ribery, Silva, Alves.

Only names of the calibre of the ones mentioned can improve really the squad as it is now. And with 30M we can get one, or two if we're lucky or we get an aged player like Owen or Henry.

Agreed with most on the list.

You've seen more of Reyes since he left the Gunners, Sabre..... what do you think of him?

by **Ciggy** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:47 pm

David Villa and Silva will be here next season mark my words :cool:

by **Dundalk** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:48 pm

Didnt Villa say he wasnt leaving Spain?

by **Judge** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:57 pm

he also said he'd buy his mum a birthday present - but he forgot

by **Owzat** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:57 pm

My sister texted me about £30m for Rafa, I guessed that might be his summer budget but it seems a bit tight.

GKs - fine as we are
CBs - may well lose one so may need to buy one
FBs - Degen has barely been available so maybe a back-up RB - or 1st choice RB. If Aurelio stays 1st choice do we need to keep Dossena or will Insua be good enough back-up?
CMs - Lucas is a bit lightweight, Barry for £2m would be nice

but it isn't our most pressing area with Gerrard, Mascherano and Alonso. If I could get £20m for Mascherano I'd be tempted to sell and buy a couple of CMs to bolster the squad
WGs - Kuyt and Riera do decent jobs, but we could get better. £30m wouldn't make much of a difference if we buy wingers though, probably talking £12m-£15m minimum for decent ones (unless there are some bosmans/bargains about)
CFs - definitely need at least one, to cover for Torres and sometimes partner him.

Definitely think £30m is not nearly enough to buy the kind of quality or quantity we need. Hell Rafa needed £40m last summer of which most was to buy a strikers (£19m), a winger (£8m) and a full-back (£7m) So three players cost us £34m, how far can Rafa make that stretch? If the £30m budget is true then it could be another season of excuses about lacking funds. I held back from saying Rafa signing his contract wouldn't change much in reality, if that's the extent of the backing he's getting then what has? That's not to say I'm jumping on the "lack of funds" bandwagon, just that Rafa isn't looking like winning the Premiership "Wenger style" with low budget, excellent buys and superb management, and big money budgets doesn't look like happening either.

by **Rockthekop** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:13 pm

For too long we have been crying out for quality wide players (and no Riera or Kuyt don't fall into that category), a second quality striker (we had Keane but Rafa decided to get rid of in the middle of a title challenge because we had the world class N'Gog

) and a top fullback.

He spent £15m buying Riera and Dossena which would have been better spent buying one quality player. Easy to say now knowing what we know but it's a recurrent theme. Rafa has tried to plug too many holes at once and we've ended up with more players but of a lower standard than what we need.

by **heimdall** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:19 pm

Owzat wrote:My sister texted me about £30m for Rafa, I guessed that might be his summer budget but it seems a bit tight.

GKs - fine as we are
CBs - may well lose one so may need to buy one
FBs - Degen has barely been available so maybe a back-up RB - or 1st choice RB. If Aurelio stays 1st choice do we need to keep Dossena or will Insua be good enough back-up?
CMs - Lucas is a bit lightweight, Barry for £2m would be nice but it isn't our most pressing area with Gerrard, Mascherano and Alonso. If I could get £20m for Mascherano I'd be tempted to sell and buy a couple of CMs to bolster the squad
WGs - Kuyt and Riera do decent jobs, but we could get better. £30m wouldn't make much of a difference if we buy wingers though, probably talking £12m-£15m minimum for decent ones (unless there are some bosmans/bargains about)
CFs - definitely need at least one, to cover for Torres and sometimes partner him.

Definitely think £30m is not nearly enough to buy the kind of quality or quantity we need. Hell Rafa needed £40m last summer of which most was to buy a strikers (£19m), a winger (£8m) and a full-back (£7m) So three players cost us £34m, how far can Rafa make that stretch? If the £30m budget is true then it could be another season of excuses about lacking funds. I held back from saying Rafa signing his contract wouldn't change much in reality, if that's the extent of the backing he's getting then what has? That's not to say I'm jumping on the "lack of funds" bandwagon, just that Rafa isn't looking like winning the Premiership "Wenger style" with low budget, excellent buys and superb management, and big money budgets doesn't look like happening either.

But hang on, it's £30 million plus what he can make form sales isn't it? I think that is a bloody impressive amount of dosh considering the fact that we are in the middle of a world recession.

All we really need is a good quality backup striker, maybe someone like Owen would be perfect, and would save us some money, and some new high quality wingers. Ideally if we could get some cover for RB and LB that would be great but it looks like we have a few youngsters coming through who can help out in those positions.

I'd sell Kuyt, Dossa, Babel, Lucas, Riera and Voronin to raise some extra money. Wouldn't be too unhappy if Riera stayed though. I reckon if we could sell all those then that shoudl give Rafa an extra £20 million so a total of £50 million and for that we should be able to get at least 3 top quality players and then we need to get the youngsters into the team a bit more.

by **Fowler_E7** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:25 pm

a striker, a right winger and right back are an absolute must, we are so are so short of quality in those areas it's a joke.

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