IN recent days Liverpool FC have been linked with 3 players who’re available for free in the summer.
It’s worth remembering that these days, a combination of small transfer budgets and players available in key positions mean Liverpool automatically get linked these days, despite the reality of any interest from the club.
This is partially due to lazy journalism and partially due to the situation Liverpool find themselves in.
Brendan Rodgers has been coy about what budget he will have this summer, despite saying a few times ‘we’ll have more resources in the summer’.
Yet bearing that in mind there have been some recent rumours which have got some of the fanbase excited about the talent on offer. Today we explore these players in more detail and look to see who is likely to end up at Anfield.
Modibo Diakite – Lazio
The first rumour is Modibo Diakite, the French born Lazio centre-back who’s been highly rated since his move from Pescara in 2006. At 25, Diakite would be a move away from the well discussed youth policy of FSG, however saying that, his price most certainly would be right, but it depends on his wage demands. Diakite is an established defender in Serie A, and one thing Serie A is well renowned for is being a difficult league to score in.
At 6’4 Diakite is known for his sheer physical presence, although, he’s a no-nonsense defender who often uses his pace and strength to upend the opposition. Good on the ball, Diakite likes to run with the ball into midfield and help shape the play. However whilst physical presence is what we need, he’s never achieved international recognition.
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Fernando Amorebieta – Athletic Bilbao
Secondly, we have the case of Fernando Amorebieta, the highly rated centre-back from Athletic Bilbao. At 27 he’s seen as a veteran of La Liga, however negotiations have broken down between club and player and now he’s being touted as a target for Italian giants Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus. Anzhi have already expressed their interest as well as Arsenal.
Basque-born, Amorebieta chose to play for Venezuela after he wasn’t included in the 2010 Spanish World Cup squad. Another defender known for his strength and pace as well as physical presence, he’d be a good addition to the squad. However the Reds would need to stem off a host of European giants in order to land his signature, with some journalists already speculating that Fernando will follow his team-mate Llorente to Juventus in the summer.
Keisuke Honda – CSKA Moscow
Lastly, we’ve had reports that attacking midfielder Keisuke Honda is being linked with a move to Anfield. Honda has impressed both for CSKA and his country Japan, impressing heavily in the 2010 World Cup.
Honda has rejected a new deal with his current club and it’s believed he’d like to move to the Premier League. Yet with on-going speculation over both Christian Eriksen, Kevin Strootman, Tom Ince and others, it seems unlikely Rodgers would pick Honda, now 26, over a player he could shape. Honda is not prolific in front of goal, however he’s netted 7 goals from 19 games which could better his record of 8 goals last season from 25 overall. Whilst Honda does have experience and ability, I’d be surprised if we see him in a Red shirt next season.
Good transfer bets for the summer:
Ashley Williams
Stefan De Vrij
Kevin Strootman
Tom Ince
Possible Departures:
Martin Skrtel
Sebastian Coates
Stewart Downing
Jonjo Shelvey
Follow me on twitter @JohnRitchie84
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should sell Reina,skrtel,agger,johnson,enrique,gerrard,allen,
downing,suarez,stturige.So when selling we can pay the dept.Too much dept.The Players available we can avoid the relegation and search for new investors like the one who are willing to take on Arsenal.
????? What the …?
There are some really insane people on here these days
Erm… Speechless.
Cocaine.. One hell of a drug!
I think it’s acid in this case!
Whoa….call an ambulance….chest pain…
What did he say?What did he say? That fella off “stop the pigeon” made more sense!
What the * is wrong with u? Why don’t u just tell the FA to send us to div. 3? U don dey mad abi? U dey CRAZE!!!
Of the 3 Honda is easily the best quality. I don’t know why you feel Honda should be prolific in front of goals – he may have played as a striker for Japan, but he’s often played wide in midfield or as a no. 10. Far better than Ince or most other options wide we could afford (we won’t be able to afford an Alexis Sanchez) given a £ 50m loss for previous 10 months.
I didn’t say he should be prolific in goal, I said he wasn’t. Fact is we need more goals from midfield and 8 out of 19 is an OK return however look at arshavin who went back to Russia scored plenty and then comes back to the UK and doesn’t score again. Not sure he’s going to set the world alight, but he’d be OK for free.
Agree that goals in smaller leagues don’t always translate to Premier League. Imo 8 in 19 is a good return for a striker and given he often plays wide it’s an outstanding return. I’ve rated Honda for a while, even before his impressive World Cup, and think he’d be a very good signing, and an excellent one on a free.
None of the above mentioned excite me or should interest a club of Liverpools stature.
Players like Allen , borini , assaidi, and downing should be sold to fund some decent players
Some people know didley!
I agree with you tony . Those 4 plus shelvey need to go
What even Fernando?? One of the best rated centre backs in Europe ATM.
Funny how people harp on about us not having a big squad and then say we should be selling all these players. Borini has been injured for much of the season, his season can’t be judged on that, Assaidi still does not have the strength to contribute in the league, but when he has played in the Europa, he has looked quality. Downing has been one of our best players in 2013 and has now added both assists and goals to his game, he is playing with confidence and is looking dangerous. Joe Allen is still young and still has a big future for us. What you fail to realise is that the owners have no money, so we need to sell to buy, the owners have money for the right player. We aren’t being held to ransom anymore, which means we will lose out on some players, this is not a bad thing. If nothing else, these players are good squad players, competition for places is very healthy and if there are injuries, we need people to slot in with the least amount of fuss. Definately keep all of these players. Including Shelvey by the way.
Nonsense. You talk bull . If the owners have no mmoney then those players should be sold to bring better ones.
And if you are defending Allen and Borini then you really are clueless
tony you are the one that has none of the clues
Well said . Allen and borini are so below Liverpool standards , it’s shocking. Get rid
lets be clear in time even if john jo shelvey becomes that bit better he is still not wanted here, he is so over rated and his quality is not the right standard to push on.
People are forgetting players that can go that are also still at the club doing little or out on loan.
spearing, carroll, wilson, can all go that would bring in at least 15 mill.
then you have the players that are squad players that we could use there sales and wage resource to up grade that little bit better of player required.
seb coates can go out on loan or sold, assaidi while looks ok it seems he might go, we would get back around 2.5 mill for him and if we sold coates we would get back around 5- 6 at best.
so that could be another 7.5 mill to put back to the summer budget?
So above and the other figure above that we could have 21 mill at the worst to re – invest!!!
Flanagan – out on loan?
Robinson – out on loan?
Suso – out on loan ?
the above are not yet strong enough to be getting 1st team places, we should be either using them in carling cup or move them on for a year loan with recall option, they would all benefit form this.
Brad jones – although he did get a new deal, can we really keep him at number two? id move him on for around 500,000
skrtel could go for around 10 mill, that would be good business as we brought him for 6 mill, so all in all the players sold would be great deals and we then use all the money around 31 million on new players plus the probably normal figure form FSG of around 25- 30 mill.
summer budget will be around 60 mill
At last, well balanced response. Although we’d get £15m for Carroll pre agreement with west ham, but it depends on wages which is the same for spearing but we’d only get 3/4 for him at best.
Shelvey J and Downing don’t deserve to go out of Anfield but Reina should be the number 1 to go out of Anfield at the end of season, think about that pls.
No . Reina is class
And replace him with who? Who’s as good as him and ready/blooded enough to take over? If you got £20m and replaced with ter stegan then maybe but we won’t. His recent form proves he’s still class, we just need a good goalkeeping coach which is what lfc haven’t had in years. And competition – get that and you’ll get the old Pepe back consistently.
Very good point. Reina is quality but he needs a coach that he respects, values and responds to.
You realise that Reina is only 3 clean sheets behind Joe Hart who is the leader in clean sheets this year. If that is a bad year for Reina, then watch out when he does become good. He is a world class keeper and the fact that Man Utd, Arsenal and Barcelona have all been linked with him shows that he is class. This means we should do everything in our power to keep him.
Players like Shelvey, downing, Assaidi, Allen e.t.c are the future players to us guyz think about it.
Lol .if Allen is the future of Liverpool FC then we might as well give up now.
No . Allen is rubbish and must be sold
Agreed . Allen is an embarrassment
I agree with Shelvey and Allen, but Downing is 28 or 29, he is not the future, but should still be kept on.
One word Shelvey is the BIGGEST donkey to ever play for LFC and if we could get 7 mill for him from Stoke take the money and run. The most over rated player to walk through the gates. Absolute rubbish
Shelvey is a good player, got all the tools but his issue is he’s tactically still a boy. That’s not his fault he was recalled from loan to quickly. A season or two on loan at a PL club, see how he does and he’ll be fine. Agree though £7m may be too tempting.
If you look at Shelvey, he is extremely similar to Gerrard when Gerrard was the same age. A bit rash in the tackle, loads of passion, especially against our biggest rivals, has a great shot and isn’t afraid to shoot, all of these are the attributes Gerrard showed when he was 20 or 21 and remember, Shelvey is still only 21 himself.
Biggest difference at that age is 1) Gerrard had excellent pace, Shelvey is very slow 2) Stevie was, although not the finished article, very consistent. He could be relied upon every game. I don’t know which Jonjo will turn up. He’s been anonymous in too many games 3) Stevie used his boundless energy to close and harry opposition even before ‘pressing’ became a recent fad. Jonjo often forgets to do this and only starts moving when we get the ball.
Despite these differences I’m actually a fan of Shelvey. He’s got a great range of passing, has an eye for goal, strength and charisma on the ball. In the recent U21 ManU game he was head and shoulders above everyone, even controlling the game from full back. Suso was awful, and you couldn’t have told that Sterling and Wisdom had even played for first team they were so average.
Shelvey is useless he can’t put the ball in the net when needed he should go
Going for the cheapo free transfers is usually not a good idea . We wasted our time picking up Joe Cole, jovanovic, and voronin recently just because they were free
Out of those players , amorebieta is the only decent one and I can see other clubs offering more
Honda is more than decent – he’s quality.
I disagree , and don’t see him doing well in english league
Strootman would be much better than Allen – big improvement there …but all the others ? – Surely we can set our sights higher
Well if that is Liverpools shopping list then I am NOT impressed .
Do you think man u, Chelsea or arsenal would be bothered about any of them ? No , is the definite answer
Strootman is young and has potential .Williams would be a disgraceful signing as he is a average lump.
Oh well , if this is close to the truth then it’s another summer where we fail to improve team
Also I want to see Allen, spearing and Borini all sold . Three useless dopes
Unless we get ch/lge we wont attract big names its that simple. The quicker ppl accept tgat the better.
I think we could raise good money for some of the players in our squad that are simply not good enough take us forward or be in the team.
Out:
Assaidi – 2 mil
Coates – 5 mil
Downing – 8 mil
Dan Wilson – 1 mil
Carroll – 13 mil
Pacheco – 2 mil
Spearing – 2 mil
Skrtel – 9 mil
I am being a bit conservative with the figures but I think that would be the least we could expect to raise from those players, others may also be the bracket of not being good enough, but the likes of Allen, Borini wont be sold as its their first season unless a good offer comes in; also some of our players need to go out on loan to gain real first team experience, don’t know why we don’t use this to help players progress, it has clearly worked with the likes of Wilshire, Cleverly, Caulker.
I think in transfers we could raise in the region of 40 mil in the summer and just hope it is spent wisely. I would like something in the line of:
In:
Honda – but only on a free and not on ridiculous wages, this would also help us gain a stronger revenue stream in the east.
Alex Pearce – Free, could be a half decent squad player
Victor Wanyama – we should be able to get for under 10 mil
Son Heung-Min – I think could cost over 10 mil but could be a worthy outlay still young and bigger than some of the attackers we have.
Christian Eriksen – I think we could tempt him if we get in early and with Agger being his compatriot may help, could cost 15 mil +.
Stefan De Vrij – I would like to say Lovren but don’t think he come to us if available as the likes of Chelski, and others in CL would be in for him too, D Vrij already a captain at 21 I think would cost less than 10 mil.
Miralem Sulejmani – Available on a free (bossman), as far as I know.
Konstantin Rausch – Available on a free (bossman), as far as I know.
Douglas (Twente) – Available on a free (bossman), as far as I know.
Not a high tranfer cost I think, and with such additions we could really compete for the top 4 next season considering they settle.
Actually that’s pretty smart. I actually think we could get more from those sales (carolls clause for west ham is £17m). Don’t think we need Erikson – is Sturridge plats then Luis would play no. 10 and he’s far better than Eriksen.
Plus we have Phillippe Coutinho who is our number 10 and can not only play wide, but can also play in that number 10 role as his number suggests.
I dont think we need to get rid o assaidi, hes mustard. With a little tlc hell b a proper handful.
Good sales list and we can make a decent Summer Transfer budget.
Buy …
CB – Pearce & De Vrij
MF – Tom Ince & Honda.
ST – Benteke / Charlie Austin(A good striker)
GK – Begovic / Mignolet.
Lol . Charlie Austin. This is Liverpool mate not Blackpool
Bosman ??? Forget about players, solve the manager issue first. Hmmm, Rafa is one of LFC top priority.
You are a *sir. Maybe you should make a banner and sit behind Rodgers at Anfield?
He is totally right .or do fantastic wins against Swansea reserves and Wigan make up for a disastrous season
I would love to see kevin strootman playing for us. Big fan of the guy.
Rodgers must be big enough to own up to his shocking errors in buying Allen and Borini or we will never move forward with this guy.
Sell them , and move on . If he continues to play them there will ne no improvement next season
Lads, free transfers become very expensive. See the likes of voronin, joe 5million a year Cole and co.
What we need is to keep our best players Yes Martin skertel and Jose Reina. Bring them back to their best.
The likes of Allen, Pacheco Asaidi, Carrol and Borrini.
Add, Eriksen plus hodling mf. not a midget like allen, an impossing player. and leave it at that. Simple. Best to be careful with the spending.
YNWA