If a report in the People is to be believed, Rafa Benitez is interested in buying Bolton centre-half Gary Cahill in the summer. Of course, with any transfer rumour coming from a Sunday newspaper, it must be taken with a pinch of salt, but it doe raise the question as to where Rafa should prioritise his signings in the summer. According to the People, if the Liverpool manager has the funds, he will shell out as much as £15million on the English defender in view to him being a long term replacement for Jamie Carragher. Although I know the Reds haven’t been the greatest defensively this season and that Cahill is a good defender, it shouldn’t be where Rafa should be splashing the cash.
A much more urgent area that needs to be addressed is the striker situation. There has been much debate surrounding David Ngog and whether he should be second choice to Fernando Torres but it is part of a much wider debate about the depth of Liverpool’s squad and the transfer funds available to the manager. The player of Ngog’s quality should not be the immediate back up for a world class player such as Torres. Especially due to the fact that Fernando has been injured on regular occurrences over the last two years, the Spaniard has been overly relied upon for goals, and you can’t be relying so heavily on one player if you want to win the title.
The problems up front started occurring after the sale of Robbie Keane, with no money given to fund his replacement, and it has led to a 21 year old rookie Ngog having to take an unnecessarily heavy weight, and expectation on the shoulders when he is not quite ready to be the immediate understudy. If you are to be Torres’s replacement, the Anfield faithful will expect a lot of you. For this, it is unfair to criticise David Ngog too much, and the focus of the summer should be to find that striker to take some of the pressure off Torres for scoring goals. In Milan Jovanovic, the Serbian striker rumoured to be moving to Anfield in the summer, we have a start but the 29 year old will not be a 20 goal a season man, he assists rather than score goals. He has scored 13 goals in the Belgian league this season. The ambitions of signing of Carlos Tevez last summer should be the level we should be looking at and if there is £15million to spend on anybody, it should go towards to buying a new striker
Another area which needs nearly just as much attention is the wings. I am not the only Liverpool supporter who believes that there is just not enough pace in the wingers at the club currently. With Ryan Babel the exception, players such as Dirk Kuyt, Albert Riera and even to some extent Maxi Rodriguez, cannot stretch defences from the wings, leading us to struggle for goals against lesser opposition both home and away. Goals from midfield have been rare this season, and this is the primary area that Rafa needs to correct in the summer for a good season next campaign. No league goals for Javier Mascherano or Lucas, just 6 for Gerrard, 1 for Aquilani when he has played, 0 for Maxi Rodriguez, 0 for Albert Riera, 5 for Ryan Babel and last night saw Yossi Benayoun’s first goal since the turn of the year. Pace and goal threat from midfield is a necessity, it takes the onus off both Torres and Gerrard to be the only goal providers, and will no doubt lead to better results.
You could say this all depends on how much money Rafa gets, but as Steven Gerrard said today, it’s all about the “quality”, not the “quantity.” If we get one quality striker, rather than 4 average squad players, I will be pleased.
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Great post. I’m glad I’m not the only one who was worried by the Cahill rumour. Not only cahill though, rumours of splashing 12m on Taiwo or Kjaer have also worried me. There is no doubt Liverpool need another LB and CB, but buying players in those positions shouldn’t take up half our transfer budget. Liverpool haven’t allowed many more goals than United or Chelsea this year. It is scoring that has been the crutch – inability to score more than a goal in the CL group stages, inability to score against Reading in the FA Cup, and inability to score in recent games such as Fulham at home or Wigan away. If we do actually have 60m to spend, I would like at least 25-30m of that to buy a striker, and at least 15m for a new winger. Luckily there are a wealth of options this summer – Mata, Silva, Turan, N’Zogbia, Rodallega, Elia, Higuain maybe, Aguero possibly, Suarez, Javi Martinez the list goes on- great summer to be a buyer.
With all the youth in both the reserve squad and the academy, I do not think Rafa should look at CB as an area of need at all. Martin, Kelly, Ayala, and San Jose have all proven themselves.
I agree with you that the 2 areas of need are on the wing and up front. Sell Babel, Riera, AND Yosi!!! If given sufficient funds, we should go after players like Turan, Hazard, Joe Cole, ect. PACE PACE PACE!!!
At striker I do NOT want Villa, Torres is our star and from watching the Spanish national team, Torres will not be the star with Villa there, I do not see that partnership going well with Liverpool. We should go after young strikers like Mario Balotelli and maybe one for the future like Romelu Lukaku
To be frawn and sincere, Rafa is d main problem we are having at L’POOL. Apart 4rm Torres signing, rafa have not been good enough during Transfer window, rathen than this he sell LIVERPOOL FUTURE PLAYERS LIKE Pennant, Crouch, Bellamy, Alonso, Sissoko etc. Infact, rafa have make L’pool team worse with d kind of player dat play 4 us, many of them are not even worthy 2 be called player and rafa still sign them 2 play 4 L’pool. If RAFA could be sack (employ no one but Mourinho), i believe dat would end L’pool problem, then we can start discussing on strenghten LIVERPOOL TEAM.
First of all, Lfc signing Cahill is just a rumour. Secondly, Rafa is just doing his job, trying to keep the rusty boat floating. However, if we DID try to sign a centre back that would make a whole lot of sense. Carra has serious problems versus fast and technically gifted players, Agger and Skrtel is statistically injured at least once a season. And let`s face it, Kyrgiakos doesn`t cut it, and neither does San Jose. Expect both of them to be shipped out. Ayala has promise but still needs to improve a lot. Kelly is the most promising guy but he might be considered a stand-in for Johnson on the right. So with injury-prone Agger and Skrtel and a rusty Carragher I wouldn`t mind us getting an extra centreback.
Also, we need a left back. And not only that, we actually need a first-team left back, cause Insua has shown a whole lot of weaknesses this term, especially defensively. So, do we get a seriously talented left back for pocket money these days? Of course not. If we want someone like Kolarev we have to cough up at least 12million, especially since Inter and Real Madrid reportedly want him too.
Jovanovic should bring some cover up front, and I also think it`s about time we permanently shift Kuyt from the wing to the center. I still would bring in another striker, and I think someone with fast and tricky feet would complement Torres the most. Aguero and Higuain are out of the question, we don`t have that money. Balotelli has serious attitude problems and primadonna tendencies usually isn`t tolerated by Rafa. Someone like Jovetic would be ideal. Industrious, young, good with both feet, very good game intelligence, and not slow. Will attract a lot of attention this summer however.
Our main problem lies on the wing. Granted that Kuyt is moved to the center I would replace him with Bolton`s Lee. That would leave us with Lee and Maxi on the right, with the possibility of Gerrard or Kuyt doing the occasional stand-in job if needed. We also have David Amoo coming through.
The left wing needs a more fundamental face-lift unfortunately. Riera needs to go, and I feel Babel will too. Possibly even Yossi if we`re offered enough cash. So, we may need to players. Who is the big question of course. I doubt Rafa will have a king size budget to begin with, so it all comes down to priorities.
Hopefully we`ll get 3 players for nothing: Jovanovic, Joe Cole and Dida.
That would solve some of our problems. If we also could bring in a CB, Kolarev, Lee, Jovetic + a left winger and/or a central midfielder – well that would be a fantastic transfer summer. In my mind at least.
OUT: Cavalieri, Martin, Itandje, Degen, Kyrgiakos, San Jose, Aurelio, Dossena (part of the equation), Plessis, Lucas (yep), Riera, Babel, El Zhar, Brouwer + this and that.
IN: Dida, CB (Danny Wilson would be reasonably cheap), Kolarev, Lee, Cole, Jovetic, Jovanovic. And we would still have enough money to buy Javi Martinez.
Mikel San jose is doing a tremondous job at the back of atletico bilbao we need not buy a centre back just for the sake of buying a replacement for Carra. Carra has still at least 1 Year left in him so we can call san jose back and play him some odd games against some lesser opposition to gave him some experience. Atletico is fighting for europa league and spanish league is considered the second best after English premier league and if San jose is performing there he can do the job in the heart of liverpool defence as well. If we waste 15 million for a defender than how can we improve our other aspects. We need right now A fast skillfull striker, a left back with height and pace, 2 Attacking wingers on either side. That mean’s only 4 Addition’s. Why we have a youth academy concept just to get the young players than to ship them out for loan period and than sell them for profits, It has been more than 10 year’s since we produced a quality player from our reserves, that is the main reason because we are just buying talented youngster’s and without giving them enough chances selling them. In a game when we are 3-0 up or in a decent position atleast we can just try to give our youngster’s a chance by playing them for atleast 10-15 minutes. If we want our youngster’s to cherish we have to give them chance. We have at least 3 Decent backup for Carra 1. Ayala. 2. Mikel San jose. 3. Kelly. Each of the above mentioned player have to ability to make it to the top just that they need chances. If we will not play our youngster’s regularly such as pacheco, kelly, a time will come when no promising youngster will choose liverpool they will choose either the big 3 or some mid table teams as they will know that at liverpool the manager never gives chances to the youngster’s. At last i can just say that we need 4 Player’s 1 Forward, 2 winger’s and 1 left back and our team will be again playing for honour’s.
Well said Ashok, Benitez is not a Wenger type. He does not gamble on youngster. He’s a type who only trust players that willing to play into his “System” without questions. Sometimes it work but mostly failed and become a target by pundits who called them self an expert.
For me Kelly should be trusted to fill in the right back position week in week out. Johnson should be play on right wing. While Amoo awaiting on the wing to make “cameo” appearance. On the other hand Maxi could be use as back up in either wing. Liverpool must do a “Major Overhaul” on the Left Flank area. Insua should be back on the bench next season, we need solid left full back. Either Kolarov, Taiwo or Vargas will be a perfect although none of them will come cheap.
Riera should be packing his bag at the end of the campaign, Babel should look for a better first team chance elsewhere and if Yossi get the “better offer” that can’t be refuse by himeself (and the club of course) Then we should used the money to get someone who can “sparks” the midfield. Somebody who posses trickery to open up defense like Juan Mata, Hazard, Turan, Silva, or Di Maria.
In my opinion Gary Cahill is a good player who can fill in Carra shoes. But we did have Daniel Ayala waiting his chance and better to use him to save the money for spend it on striking area. If the manager decided that we need to increase the “homegrown players” then Kyrgiakos & San Jose must be shown the door next summer. Cahill price will be inflated if he goes to WC, so better to find another option and David Wheater name from Boro comes on the top of my list.
Selling San Jose will be closely related with Javi Martinez, this lads is flying high at the moment and his future duet with our “Javi” Mascherano will be superb. Martinez should replace Lucas.
Anyone heard about Van der Vaart linked with our club again ?? Some officials from Real offer us their fringe players and we register our interest on him