Rafa Benitez has been in talks with Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton over the last few weeks. High on the agenda would have been the scale of the transfer budget afforded to the Spanish manager. Benitez has no doubt been trying to guarantee that all money from player sales is reinvested straight away into the playing staff. If he does get his way in this regard, how much money could he accumulate by selling unwanted players? I have listed a few potential sales below that could bring in a fair amount of money to build a transfer war chest for Rafa:
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Ryan Babel – £9millionYossi Benayoun – £8million
Albert Riera – £6million
David Ngog – £3million
Mikel San Jose – Sold for £2.6million to Athletic Bilbao
Diego Cavalieri– £2.5million
Krisztian Nemeth – £2.5million
Jay Spearing – £2million
Nabil El Zhar – £1.5million
Philipp Degen – £1million
Charles Itandje – £500,000
Stephen Darby – £500,000
Although I may have overestimated and underestimated some of the prices here, I think we could get at most £40m from the 12 players listed above. The question remains though, doesn’t it leave a big hole in our squad if we sell all of these players? In some respects it does but I have highlighted those in bold above that I believe need replacing. In regards to the others, there are many youngsters in the ranks who could very easily fill the roles vacated. In the goalkeeping positions, Cavalieri and Itandje could very easily be replaced by Gulacsi and Bouzanis, Jay Spearing has been replaced already in the reserves during his time on loan at Leicester by Steven Irwin, Stephen Darby and Philipp Degen’s right back slot can be filled by Martin Kelly, while Nabil El Zhar’s wing role could easily be filled by both David Amoo and Alex Kacaniklic. As Krisztian Nemeth has been on loan at AEK Athens this season, a striker replacement is not really required and both Dani Pacheco and Nathan Eccleston can more than make up for his sale.
The four in bold highlighted above means we would need to find 3 midfielders and a striker for that £40million. That might prove to be the difficult and the solution maybe found in Javier Mascherano. Masch has stalled on signing a new contract until after the World Cup and he has stated in recent weeks that his family is not happy on Merseyside. If we estimated his value at £30million, that would boost the transfer fund up to £70m. Whether this is an option for the manager is another question. Would he want to sell all of these players and would he actually get all of the money back from the board?
In any case, the list above is what I believe could be the solution to Liverpool’s lack of spending power to rebuild the team in the summer. Would you sell these players and who would you spend the money on?
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………..or just sell the club!
Personally as we dnt know whether money brought in by selling players will even go to transfers, i would look to do part exchange with real madrid for masch. players tht could be used – VDV, Diarra, Drenthe, Higuain (unlikely).
Also to Gazaroo, u cant just sell all your players and buy new ones and expect them to gel sraight away. altho u are talking about some very good players changing our whole side is ridiculous. we have a good core to the side
I really hope nothing rash and stupid is done. Yes clear the crap. But we need to keep the best players and build on them and those are Reina, Johnson,Agger, Mascherano,Gerrard,Torres& Carra cause he is versitle reliable and experienced. I trust that with the right finances and proper backing Rafa is the man to give us a team we would be proud of. The current situation reminds me of the one when he was at Valencia he asked for a table and gave him a lamp situation! and to the American owners just sell out, you’ve done enough harm and damage to this great club!!!
I think the wing is our biggest problem and does not get mentioned that often if you look at the big teams United,Arsenal,Chelsea,City,Tottenham and Villa they all have fast creative natural wingers we have if you look Riera is our only natural wide man and Babel is our only fast wide man so we need to sort this I would buy Milner and even though he has been great in the centre of the park I would play him wide right as he has pace and knows how to get chalk on his boots he is also very versatile and like Ireland can play anywhere across the middle with ease this will be very usefull sand I hate to say it but Mascherano is unhappy,has said he wants to move to Barcelona and only has a year left on his contract so I would sell him to raise funds, you dont want to keep a player who does not want to play for the club so here is who I would sell and buy Outs-Riera{£6m},Babel{£9m},Benayoun{£8m},Mascherano{£30m], Cavalieri{£3m},Itandje{£500,000},Spearing{£2m},San Jose{£2.7m} ,Degen{£2m},El Zhar{£1.5m},Nemeth{£3m} ,Aurelio{free} Ins-Ireland{£10m},Tardelli{£5m},Mata{£16m},Milner{£25m},Riise{£4m},Banega{£10m},Jovanovic{free},Hennessey{£2.5m} these are all very good players most of them are under 25 bar Riise and Jovanovic and give us so many options my starting XI would pick itself Reina-Johnson-Carragher/Skrtel-Agger-Riise in midfield play one holding midfielder rather than two start Banega then two attacking midfielders in Gerrard and Ireland/Aquilani the right wing Milner and Mata on the left and obviously Torres up front with this creative midfield Torres would score a lot more than he already does because as we know all he needs is a chance and he would get plenty and other than the players mentioned we would have Jovanovic to cover the left wing or Riise to push up and Insua fill the left back and Maxi and Kuyt as cover for the right ,Kuyt could also cover up front with Tardelli and Lucas would cover Banega also a lot of these midfielders know how to tackle like Milner and Gerrard and can easily be pushed back in the middle if needs be ,there versatility is great it would give us so many options, Masherano,Carra,Darby and Kelly cover for right back and Soto and Ayala for the centre, for left back Insua and Agger ,then we would have Hennessey as back up for Reina , but in a perfect world where the owners gave us £50million to spend +sales I would keep Mascherano instead of Banega and buy the slightly more expensive Kolarov rather than Riise and C.Cole rather than Tardelli also get Gary Cahill and sell Soto and have Guus Hiddink as manager as I feel Rafa is to negative.
I know a lot won’t agree with this but I do think it is time to make a few changes, I think it is time to sell Gerrard (no one player is bigger than the club and this will be the last time we can get a decent fee for him).
I think sell Mascherano, Gerrard, Benayoun, Riera, Cavalieri, Spearing, El Zhar and Itandje.
Around £70million
If Benitez isnt going to use Degen and Nemeth, sell them as well. Nemeth, didn’t really do much in Greece and it is a massive jump up to the Premier League. There is at least £3million there.
Plus San Jose fee of £2.6million, thats roughly £75million, with this we should look at:
GK, – Covered, Reina and as mentioned Gulacsi/Bouzanis and also Hansen.
Experienced LB to help Insua continue to development of the academy and reserve players (eg Mavinga/Robinson) coming through in this position, its a pity Aurelio was so injury prone.
CB – Feel there is good competition here, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Ayala, and potentially Wilson. I would like to see Kyrgiakos be kept to help with development of the academy and reserve players.
RB – Johnson, plus Kelly/Irwin/Darby/Mendy.
LW – Rodriguez/Babel, I think that Babel turned the corner after the talk with Benitez and could come good.
RW – I think this is an area we have to invest heavily. A good signing here. We all could name a hundred players we want, but I would like to see a World Class player.
CM – Lucas, Aquilani. Another area we should invest some money with a World Class defensive midfielder who is coming into his own, as I still think Lucas is more of a box to box midfielder rather than a holding midfielder, but we all argue over him. Although this could be the achilies heal if we get hit with injury again.
F – Torres, Kuyt (also someone we can move back to RW)/Jovanovi?/Ngog/Pacheco. This position with Rafa I am confused by, he always says we also claim we need two World Class forwards but Rafa insists on only playing one, however I would like to see an established World Class player bought not a player for the future.
I would like to see some of the players just under the first team get some DECENT loans and some DECENT playing time, with this in mind I wouldnt mind seeing Ngog go out on loan and really give him a full season of football to see if he is Liverpool quality.
So my take is
LB – £5-8 million
RW – £20 million
CM – £20 million
F – £25 million
Most of all I think the Carling Cup this year has to be a testing ground for the players of the future, with some experienced heads in the team to help their development. I also think that Rafa has to trust the kids and give them a go rather than playing key players out of position again and again.
Apologises forgot young Shelvey who will be hopefully challenging for a position in the middle.
I will shoot myself in the face before I pay 30 million for Jim Milner.
masch stays, babel stays, kuyt stays. really all we need is a full back and two strikers so we can stop playing this weak 4-2-3-1 formation that gets us no goals and exposes our defence and wings. what rafa should be playing is a standard 4-4-2 with a rm and lm, one holding mid and one attacking mid in the slot behind the two strikers (torres, kuyt, jovanovic). we already signed one, and we have two world class strikers (kuyt always playing rm why? I don’t know) so that solves our stike pairing. now we need to replace kuyt on the right side and riera on the left with (hopefully) arda turan and juan mata, maybe stephen ireland. benayoun is also leaving so that makes me feel we need another replacement on the wings so if we can get 3 solid wingers that covers our offense. for defence I think it’s obvious we need a full back (preferably one with a left foot who can play both sides), we are on the verge of signing a center half (wilson). so in the end we need 2-3 wingers and a full back for the sales of benayoun, riera and some deadwood, and rafa needs to play kuyt as striker
Mascherano is pretty unlikely to go this summer, as it’s Barcelona he wants to play for seemingly, and they won’t be able to afford him on top of Villa and Fabregas. Expect Barca to make hints about Masch if the Fabregas deal is sticking though.
By the way, live4pool, the 4231 formation does seem to get us goals. We were top scorers in the league last season, and top scorers in all competitions the season before. Basically, though, any system that enables Torres and Gerrard to find space will result in us winning most games, so having them fit is the key thing.
I would sell all of the above plus Kuyt and Aquilani and buy .
Javi Martinez 20 mill
Ever Banega 15 mill
Joe Cole free
Hennesee 2mill
Drenthe 7mill
Higuain 25mill
Kjaer 11 mill
grand total 80 mill should even have some dough left over
Just when i thought someone was talking some sense, when live4pool said:
“masch stays, babel stays, kuyt stays. really all we need is a full back and two strikers”
…he goes and ruins it.
“so we can stop playing this weak 4-2-3-1 formation that gets us no goals and exposes our defence and wings. what rafa should be playing is a standard 4-4-2”
I’m not shocked to be honest. Some people don’t know much about football, so it’s to be expected. I just wish people would only talk about things they’d at least taken the time to try and understand. Idealistic, i know. If people are that lazy that they won’t do that, i’m not going to waste my time putting them all straight – there’s too damn many ignorant people to do that.
Anyway. We will have very little money to spend this summer. NO money will be added to the transfer budget by Hicks and Gillett. With any players we sell, we may not see the money reinvested. As such, it should be our clear and definite ambition to keep a hold of this group of players until we have new owners and are in a more stable position financially.
If we keep all our players, Riera aside, we’ll only really need to plug the hole at left back and then we’ll be set. Honestly. It’d be nice to have another striker, but at least Jovanovic is joining.
Squad next season:
Reina
Cavalieri
Gulacsi
Johnson
Kelly
Carragher
Agger
Skrtel
Kyrgiakos
?
Insua
Mascherano
Aquilani
Lucas
Shelvey
Maxi
Kuyt
Benayoun
Babel
Gerrard
Pachecho
Torres
Jovanovic
N’Gog
Done.
People need to get real. If we can keep together the majority of the squad it’ll be a huge positive. The squad isn’t, despite what people think, a million miles away from competing with United, Arsenal, Spurs and City but we do need plug a few holes and then find the level which took us to 2nd in the season before last. We don’t need to overthrow the squad, because it’s not too dissimilar to that of 08/09. Rafa and the coaches just need to get the absolute best out of the players like they did in the 08/09 season.
Since the beginning of last season we’ve come a long way, or rather we’ve come through a lot i should say, and a lot will have been learnt by everyone – we’ve also got Maxi, Aquilani and Jovanovic from the start of the next campaign, which is a great positive and undoubtedly makes our squad stronger than when we began 09/10. We have a playmaker to replace Alonso, we have competition on the right and we have another senior striker aside Torres. We should also be able to promote Pacheco too, and we’ll have Shelvey to give more depth in midfield – he may not be ready for a big role, but he’ll be better than Spearing.
If we can keep the playing squad stable while we are in the middle of a very turbulent and worrying period off the pitch, i’ll be delighted. People should stop bitching about some of our players and realise there’s bigger issues at the club than who starts on the wing or who’ll play up front.
Luckily, from my point of view, i’m more likely to be left satisfied come September. There’s still a slight hope we will keep the squad together, or at least the main players within it. There’s no chance, however, that we’re going to be spending the money many fans desire us to.
One signing i’d be very happy with is J Cole. Maybe if Benayoun is sold the transfer fee could be used to pay his wages. If we sign anyone like J Cole it’ll only be a bonus though.
I could not agree with some of you.
Buying a numbers of new player won’t be a great idea due to to they take time to settle in and gel into the team.
My take would be
Reina
Johnson Carragher Agger Insua
Mascherano
Joe Cole Gerrard Van Der Vaart
Aquilani
Torres
Sub:
Cavalieri
Skrtel
Lucas
Maxi
Babel
Kuyt
Jovanovic
Backup:
Gulasci
Kyrgiakos
Ayala
Spearing
Pacheco
Nemeth
Ngog
Plessis
Kelly
Irwin
Hansen
Amoo
Bruna
Robinson
Out
Riera -8m
Aurelio -Free
Benayoun -7m
Degen -2m
Itandje -1m
El Zhar -1m
Total 19m
In
Joe Cole -Free
Van Der Vaart – 12m
Jovanovic -Free
Why do people fixate on 4-4-2 and rotation policy? All the big clubs play with both. Man Utd only play with one out and out striker in matches, Rooney is utilized on the right, same with Arsenal, van Persie, when fit plays on the left and comes in, same with Chelsea, Drogba only out and out striker, Anelka plays in hole or on the flank. If you look at the big continental sides, they are the same. Barca, Real Madrid, Inter, Milan all play with only the one out and out striker and have a 5 pronged midfield. The game is usually won and lost in midfield, so we need a top quality midfield. Lucas has been getting a lot of stick, but you have to remember, his natural style of game is that of Gerrard’s, he is adapting not only to the Premier League, but also to this new position. He was also one of our best players last season. I’ve seen people want rid of Kuyt, Kuyt is one of most consistent players, loves the Red shirt, and is an absolute work horse, plus he scores very important goals and has a creativity to his play. Why sell Ngog? He averages just over 1 goal every 5 games, that is pretty good considering he is only young and was thrown in the deep end. He has been prolific at all levels of the France national side he has been a part of. I agree in getting rid of Itandje, Degen, Cavalieri, Riera and also players like Plessis. Two players who I would love us to sign is Arda Turan and Mesut Ozil, two very creative players and Mesut Ozil can play as a left winger too. As far as a LB goes, yes, I would love to see Lahm, but fear he would be at least 20 mil, probably closer to 30 mil. Gareth Bale would also be a good signing, but again would be in that price bracket.
The underperformance for liverpool doesnt mean it won’t sign in grt players.Milner is interested,dzeko,bonega guys to watch.The problem is the cash.
My idea
It’s important to know that LFC does not need to savage the team we have now. We need to add only a few select players to make a real difference to our squad. That can be done with selling some players like Riera, El Zhar, Degen, Plessis, Babel, spearing and dare I say, possibly Mascherano or Gerrard. These players including one or the other of Mascherano or Gerrard could easily bring in up to £50 million.
These funds could be used to maybe bring in the likes LB – Kolorov or Taiwo, LW – Turan, Mata, CM + AM – Milner, Banega or J Cole, ST – Zidic or Higuain. The left side is the key area we need to improve. The money raised would probably enable us to buy 3 or 4 of these players.
LFC team for next season
Reina
Johnson
Carragher
Agger
Kolorov or Taiwo
Mascherano or Gerrard
Banega
Maxi
Aquilani
Turan or Mata (or both if more money is available)
Torres
Subs – Cavalieri, Kelly, Skrtel, Lucas, Pacheco, Kuyt and Zidic. There is then still some depth in the squad with other unnamed players and new young signings we already have.
These players are real targets that would change the dynamics of Liverpool’s squad. The 4 players for me would be Kolorov, Banega, Turan and Zidic, and all possible within the £50 million budget.
reina
jhonson cara agger
lucas
( must be hard tackle and good passes )
gerrard aquilani
maxi cole
milan torres
gerrard wants to quit
mascherano wants to quit
benayoun wants to quit
forget joe cole he wont move to the north of england
van der vart is a man u target so forget him
forget irland he wants to play for villa
best u guys look for players who are in reach instead of dreaming about players above your teams ambitions
Why do people want Cole so badly? I think he’s majorly overrated – no doubt he’s good but not worth his wages.
I would like to see Pachecho and Nemeth named in the team more, I know Pachecho kept getting called up to represent the under 18 spain squad and Nemeth was on loan but they’re two good attacking options.
Gerrard doesn’t want to quit – he’s said “I’ve got 3 years left on my contract so I will be here next season”
Mascherano doesn’t want to quit – he’s not settled in England, his wife doesn’t speak English and so needs him to come with her whenever she goes out, and he’s still dreaming of a move to Barcelona that might never happen (that’s the only club he’s interested in moving to)
Benayoun doesn’t want to quit – he wants clarification on his future that’s all, he’s the one making up all the ‘this club is interested’ rumours to try and force contract talks.
@Mick : I do think that you’re correct when saying that the 4231 formation gets us goals…but only when Gerrard and Torres are fit. Without them in the team it leaves us with Lucas running the show in midfield and Ngog alone up front. The formation then falls very short of being attacking, and Rafa needs to modify the formation to accommodate 2 strikers as Torres is the only striker we have capable of filling the single striker role.
A bit more imagination is needed here from Rafa and if this situation is not sorted out we’ll again be playing defensive football at the Wigans and West Hams come next season.