All-Aboard to Moscow?
It is highly likely that Rafa will again have to raise his own funds in the summer transfer window if he is going to have the advantage of bringing fresh faces into the club. With Liverpool in a vast amount of debt and with warring owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett still not in a position to sell the club, Rafa may again have to pick the bones of what is already a paper-thin squad in terms of suitable back-up in all area’s of the pitch. Here I take a look at which three Liverpool players should be shown the door in order for Rafa to generate the cash he so desperately needs.
1) Albert Riera – Needs little or no explanation as to why the Spanish winger should be shown the Anfield exit door. His comments describing Liverpool as ‘’a sinking ship’’ should have been kept to himself, in order to save his own football career if nothing else. The Spaniard was signed from Espanyol in the summer of 2008 for £8m. Riera may want to look at his own performances as one of the factors in why Liverpool’s ship may have sailed in what has been a turbulent season. Riera enjoyed a good end to the last campaign playing an integral part in Liverpool’s title push scoring a wonderful goal against Aston Villa but certainly that alone does not do any justice to the £8m that was spent on him. Look’s destined for a summer move to Russia. Let’s pray Riera’s ship does not sink on his journey to Russia.
2) Lucas Leiva – This choice may prove a little more controversial than what it might have been six months ago. The Brazilian has been the victim of frequent abuse by some Liverpool fans who have savaged the midfielder for not being good enough. ‘’Ultra defensive’’ might be the most commonly used phrase when it comes to describing the Brazilian. He has not helped himself with his frequent sideways passing and plays a very similar role to Javier Mascherano. Lucas however has shown that when allowed the opportunity to get forward, he can do a job which he has proved in the Europa League games against Lille and Benfica where his bursting runs resulted in both a penalty and a goal for himself. It raises the question as to whether the manager has hindered the midfielder’s progress by playing him in the wrong position. Never the less the Brazilian has had long enough to shine and his time may well be up.
3) Alberto Aquilani – There is no two ways about the validity behind this choice. Aquilani has been a total waste of the £20m that was spent on him and he has simply not done enough during his time at the club to make any Liverpool fan believe he is as good as he were made to believe. The Italian has been plagued by recurrent injuries, and when its not injuries its viruses. On the few occasions that the midfielder has played during this campaign, he has looked way out of his depth and looks like he is struggling with the pace of the English game. Was seen as the player to fill the void left by Xabi Alonso who left to join Real Madrid but judging by his first season in England – and I for one hope it may be his last, Rafa may not find ample excuses to let the £20m flop walk out of the Anfield exit door.
Someone mentioned selling our best assets and i have to agree with you partly.
On one hand –
Gerrard looked lost on Sunday without his mate up front, so clearly he wants to be around world class players, which is something we dont have a lot of
Torres is injury prone and yet will still command a huge transfer fee.
If we sold these guys we would get around £130million which could buy us
David Villa
Gonzalo Higuain
Rafael V de Vaart
Mario Balotelli
All these players would add something to liverpool going forward, and would add strength to where we are short.
On the other hand –
The alternative is to sell all our average players and buy one of the above to give Gerrard and Torres some hope that we are on the right road.
As far as im concerned, we need a huge amount of investment as far too much has been wasted.
Riera, Lucas, Ngog, Kuyt, Benny, Babel, Aqua should all disappear, they are just not good enough
Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Mascherano, Gerrard and Torres. Its upto Rafa to fill in the gaps with 3 world class players and a bench that will terrify opposition…
It’s Rafa who needs to go, simply his tactics are not good enough to win the League. Time for a change at Anfield from the top down!
Sell the unwanted players & use the youth or reserve players that already have. They never did got many chance to show their skills. What for Liverpool bought & trained them in the first place. Just to play for reserve team or …..come on, forgive about buying players. We got bunch of talented young players here. But still got some players i really agree Liverpool should go & get it such as Arda Turan, Lee Cheong Yong, Kjaer & Klasic. who are much more better that Babel, Kuyt, Reira & Lucas.
We have a whole bunch of players who are not up to the standard of Liverpool’s first XI and never will be. It’s okay to keep some of these as backup – Lucas, Kuyt and Insua could be examples of this, though feel free to disagree – but we need to sell the others and then get in a few quality players for several positions: left back, and two attackers (Jovanovic may be one, but I suspect he’s more of a backup.) I’d try to sell Cavalieri, Itandje, Degen, Aurelio, San Jose, Plessis, El Zhar, Riera, Nemeth and at least one of Babel or Benayoun.
I hope you don’t consider yourself an expert. Riera yes good riddance, Lucas and Aquaman still have the best football ahead of them!
everyone agreed to sold Riera, but Lucas is a good squad player we just need him in bench not on the starting eleven while for Aquilani he need another season to prove his worth but afterwards if he’s not up to it he should be ship back to his native country. And everyone should be realized that Italian is rarely make a big hit in EPL
as for the medicore player that should be up for sale : Degen, Itandje, Aurelio, Kyrgiakos, Ngog, Insua, Cavalieri, Plessis, Brouwer, David Martin, Weijl, San Jose, El Zhar. For GOD sake we don’t have to keep these bunch of players if they can not do a job and reach Liverpool standard.
Try to gain as much as possible money on Babel, put Johnson as right winger, promote Kelly as a right fullback week in week out.
keep Aqua, still don’t have chances to prove that he worth than 20m. Sell Babel and Benayoun as he already have their time in Anfield. Bring Arda Turan, can play either flank. Get 1 more striker as backup to Torres, maybe Carton Cole. Get Joe Cole as he will available for free. If we get Cole then use Kuyt as backup for Torres.
rafa should be fired cause he don’t know how to use good player like aqua,benayoun,reira,etc.we should bring new manager.
We need this the replacement for this position
Hyppia-Hangerland,Luisau,Chellini
Riise-Cissoko
Alonso-Arteta
Crouch-David Villa
Bellamy-David Silva
Mourinho, Gullit
Sell- Itandje, Ngog, El Zhar, Lucas, RAFA
Promote – Plesis, San Jose, Nemeth, Pacheco, Ayala
Its Benitez who needs to go people! He bought all these rubbish players and he’ll buy a load more if he’s given the cash. 1 good player 4 bad ones is Benitez’s record. If he finishes 6th or 7th it will be a disgrace to our great club if hes not sacked.
Get him out and get a new manager in who can actually COACH players to improve instead of letting Benitez go on buying and selling like a woman with compulsive shopping disorder.
Can anybody tell me why we should get rid of Aqua, Lucas have been given a full Season to show his worth and aqua, Have we or rafa gave the guy proper chance. The writer of the article is being to criticle of aqua, I Can count on my finger’s how many player’s in the league took 2 to 3 seasons to show their worth Aqua do not need 2 or 3 season’s he only need a proper pre season, and than run into the games, Rafa is the main culprit for destroying the talents of Aqua, Babel and lucas. I Think we should get rid of Degen, Insua, yossi, kuyt. Infact this full season STEVEN Gerrard can be called as liverpool worst player he himself has accepted it can you say we must get rid of gerrard. No, Carra is also not the player he used to be. He is so much dissapointing this season. Style of play has Changed in the league Now even the full backs doesn’t kick the ball out uselessly which is just what carra does, No end pass just kicks the ball for the other team to get a throw in. Never looks for a forward pass. He may be the heart and soul of liverpool but if we want to have a balance than we have to regroup and think of our mistakes this season. We don’t need wholesole changes we only need 1 Center Forward, 1 Left winger, and a Left Back. I have my personal choice as Djeko(whose rate has gone down since wolfsburg is lying midtable) 20 million, arda turan(the class and the trickery along with pace in abundance which we are missing also the lad know the value of the shirt)14 Million. And third not the last a decent left back.
Team next season should be
Reina
Johnson Carra Agger Decent Left Back
Mascerano
Maxi Gerrard Turan
Djeko Torres
Its hightime we should support torres with a class striker to ease his burden and make him more effective. Its hightime for rafa also to realize that our best formation should be 4 4 2, lets be more attacking in the next season. And by God yesterday night i had a dream that liverpool qualified for the champions league on the last day of the season. Touch Wood
In the final analysis, Riera spoke the truth! It is a sinking ship and benitez has hoodwinked the likes of you to think he said something wrong…torres has come out saying more or less the same thing with regards to the current crop of players who in his view have not got what it takes to bring success thus we can interpret it as saying we are not going anywhere which in a sense is a sinking ship…so should we sell him too? let us look a performances which should determine departures and in my view, injuries have limited rieras contribution unlike the form of gerrard who has not performed at all this season in tandem with his friend carragher…but to make my point, the team needs rebuilding and if need be, we should sell assets that will no longer be better like gerrard just as vieira was sold at arsenal.
without gerrard next season will be worse than this season
Oh David, how short sighted you are.
1 of three isn’t bad. Well actually it is, its 33% correct which would fail most exams.
Nice try author, but try again
i agree with u noblelox
sell benny,insua,degen,riera,El zhar.Reina(GK),Kelly or Johnson(RB)Kiri or carra, Skertel(CB)Agger(LB)Rodriguez or Johnson(RW)Masch,Gerrard(CM)Belhadj or Babel(RW)Torres and ????(S).Not sure about the striker.
If were all going to live in dream land I may as well pick my fanstasy football signings, because Liverpool have as much chance of signings these players as the players everyone in here think liverpool should sign.
RB- Cafu
LB- P.Maldini
CB- B.Moore
RM- G.Best
CM- R.Keane
LM- Messi
S- Pele
if we keep Reina, carragher, gerrard and torres we might have a chance of winning the league next year.
this is more realistic than most of yous living in dreamland
I have never read such a load of cr@p in my life! Between all of you we would sell our whole team and then to replace it spend up to £500mil. What planet are you all on?? Yes this has been an awful season and yes we need investment so we can improve our squad rather than wheeling and dealing to improve it.
Riera definately has to go after his little outburst but to say that Lucas and Aqua should be sold is ridiculous. Aqua is starting to show is calibre and will surely be a big player for us next season. Lucas has been the scapegoat for our poor performances for far too long. He has been the most consistent player this season for us and has improved match after match. Yes he gives away stupid fouls but this is from fighting to get the ball back. He may never be a world class midfielder but would anybody be suprised? He is a young lad playing football on the other side of the world from his home. From the off he has been booed and criticised by liverpool fans but throughout all of that he has trained and worked harder and is improving all the time. Could any of you do that after being booed by your own fans week in week out?
Liverpool need investment! We have a strong team but a very weak squad. Rafa needs the freedom to go out and spend money like the Mancs do. Fergie has just forked out £15-18mil for a young mexican lad who according to Fergie “is not ready for the 1st team yet”! If Rafa did that you could hear the abuse from miles away. That is the difference. We need the money for Rafa to go out and buy the players he needs rather than having to trade up to players. We don’t need to sell the underperformers we need to give them competition from quality players.
how the hell liverpool gonna play if we sell all our player,gillet