The obvious calculation in Chelsea’s £8m bid plus Yossi Benayoun for Raul Meireles was that they felt the offer was worth as much as we paid for the Portuguese midfielder a year ago. The Reds bought Meireles for €13million last summer while Yossi Benayoun was sold to Chelsea for £5.5million. £8m + £5.5m is roughly €14m but there was never any chance of the Reds accepting any such deal.
Firstly, on numerous occasions this summer, it has been reported the Reds have made it abundantly clear to clubs interested in Raul that they will not accept a bid below or equal to what they paid for the player. One of the reasons for this is due to the fact Liverpool paid €13m for the player when he only had a year left on his contract at Porto. For this reason then, the Reds rate him a lot higher, especially due to the fact they are not desperate to sell the 28 year old, and because he is still on a long term contract.
Secondly, and more importantly, Benayoun is no longer worth £5.5million as he is now a year older at 31 years of age, and also because he has an injury plagued season, meaning he is now probably worth between £1-2m. In addition, according to the BBC also, although Arsenal, Lille and Liverpool were all said to be interested in signing Benayoun, the Reds interest was never really genuine as they had a first refusal written into the Israeli’s contract, which they are now no longer interested in enforcing.
So where does this leave Meireles and Benayoun? I hope Raul stays as he would definitely strengthen the depth in our squad this season, and will surely give the likes of Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam greater competition. His contribution against Arsenal especially demonstrates his importance to the first team and he certainly offers a different, and in some respects a better option, than the likes of Adam in some matches.
Three reasons why we won’t bring Benayoun back….
1 We are trying to buy British if possible, he isn’t
2 We are trying to buy young if possible, he isn’t
3 We only buy older if he is outstanding, he isn’t!
Meireles is worth £15m in current market so this deal is a non-starter
I’m not sure no1 is a factor for consideration. Dalglish has after all bought Doni, Enrique, Suarez and Coates. Number 2 and 3 make more sense. I think buying British is a bit of a red herring. Its buying the right player that counts. If all things are otherwise equal..age, quality, mentality, price, role… then British would be preferable but i doubt in any of our purchases thus far that passport was a deciding factor.
FSG work by the money ball principle. Which means that it could be very smart to bring in an older player as long as you can get him cheap and do not offer him a 4-5 year contract with high wages.
david tully, i told you to report right information on liverpool,
raul was brought from porto for 11.5 million uk pounds sterling and that was that.
what are you going on about?
Em, I presume you are referring to the 13 million quoted by David Tully? Well if so then you are a complete moron, as the little € in front of 13 tells you that is in Euros and if you convert 13 million Euros to pounds you get……….11.5 (source: http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=13&From=EUR&To=GBP)!!! dadaaaaa!
May be best checking the details before you go and make a fool out of yourself in front of the entire world!!!
What are peoples thoughts on offering £15m plus Meireles for Torres?
Did you say WE give chelsea 15M AND Meireles?????
I wouldn’t give em 15M on its own or straight swap meireles for Torres. Have you seen Torres in the last six months????
Fair point….but thats because hes at Chelski. Thought he’d be a decent enough back up striker
David is right the price was 13m (EURO’s).
More to the point this whole story is a non starter, as David has highlighted in the article. But more than this there is no way Sturridge would be prepared to come to Anfield as a backup, also with Aquilani having left on loan, Raul is a must forthe squad and will not be released, even for a Modric sized fee.
This comes across as the worst deal ever. Benyoun (and I’m not slating him) is worth £1m maybe £2m. A player who hasn’t played all year because he’s injured loses significant value, especially at the age of 31. Meireles, given the figure players are selling for, is worth more than £15m. Our player of the year last year and an established international. Chelsea are in dream land.
Personally we should keep him as at present he’s a better option than Henderson who will take time to develop. I think it would be a massive error to sell him, especially to Chelsea.
no deal! Meireles offers us more dynamics and give us the extra strength we need. it’s a long season and he is one player we can’t afford to loose.
he is too important to loose. so, NO way to offload him.
AVB wants Raul because, he hardly has any time to find a quality CM. He is also new in EPL, & desperate for a known quality MF, experience in England.
This deal is difficult to go through, even if Chelsea offer logical money (around $ 23-25mn) because LFC is not looking for $, rather they are looking to boast the squad with quality players. I don’t think Benayoun adds any value to the squad & he is 31.
Only way this deal can go, if Chelsea offers Sturridge (may be at a higher price & both clubs can negotiate on who actually pays the net-offs). But then, Chelsea ‘ll not make it easy for their direct CL spot rival to rectify a 35mn mistake.
If a deal were to be done it would have to include Sturridge for Liverpool to be interested at all!
Are we insane theres nothing to discuss here Mereiles should not be sold , We should not sell our best players period!!!!!!
We deffo should not sell our players to any team that could take one of the four CL spots. That is madness by any standard.
Get real! As if we’d want a player that AVB got shot off whilst in charge at Porto, as for Sturridge, he doesn’t want to play for a team that isn’t even in the Europa League. But we’ll swap you Torres for Suarez, Torres is sh.te…
My thinking is now that we have all of these speedy players we need a great ball handler in the final 3rd to distribute the ball them. I know some of you may think otherwise, but I think Ronaldinho would be the perfect man to feed our hungry players. He is almost back to peak fitness and is striving for a world cup spot in a young Brazil squad. The transfer fee and his wages should not be too high and should fit into Liverpool’s wage structure. Liverpool signing Dinho could be a blessing for all parties involved.
Do you think this meireles/benayoun deal was just a cover to hurry along the spurs/modric deal? try scare spurs into selling.