If Rafa Benitez stays beyond this season, there will have to be guarantee from the Liverpool board that the money received from transfer proceeds will be allowed to go straight back into investing in new players. So which players should be allowed to leave? In my opinion, the three crucial areas that need to be improved in the summer are the striker, left back and winger positions. With Fabio Aurelio most likely leaving in the summer, and the lack of strike power up front, the most likely area where players will be sold is in midfield, and more specifically in the wing positions. The most important element next season for me is that the midfield starts to create and score goals. Javier Mascherano and Lucas have not scored a Premier League goal between them this season, just 9 for Gerrard, 1 for Aquilani when he has played, 1 for Maxi Rodriguez, 0 for Albert Riera, 4 for Ryan Babel and Yossi Benayoun has only scored one in the league since the turn of the year.
Albert Riera – A dead cert to leave in the summer, the Spanish winger’s time at Anfield was ended by his ill-timed remarks about the manager just before a crucial Europa League tie with Lille. The frustrations of not starting matches combined with his desire to attain a World Cup final squad spot with Spain, for him to attack the manager to instigate a move away from Merseyside. He rejected moves to Russia due to the wage cut he would have had to take if he wanted first team football in Moscow. Isolated from the first team squad for the rest of the season, he will be sold in the summer and with a price tag of between £6-9m, it would give Liverpool some much needed funds. It won’t be a shame to see the Spaniard go but he had shown some promise in his first season at the club. He provided much needed width on the left but his relative lack of pace will need to be addressed in his successor. Someone with natural pace and width is required to play this position.
Ryan Babel – I have actually been one of Babel’s staunchest supporters over the past year when things hadn’t been going so well for him. I repeatedly said that he needed more game time to prove himself. Since the turn of the year and after a talk with Benitez, the Dutch winger has got his chance and you can clearly see his enthusiasm and desire to succeed. He ran himself into the ground against Atletico last week and again worked hard against Chelsea on Sunday but for £11.5million, it’s just not enough. At 23 years old, Babel needs to start maturing fast, and although he says he wants to stay and that his confidence is high, it must start reflecting in his performances. He is way too inconsistent and what Liverpool need right now are consistent performers who can create and score goals every week. Babel may have to be sacrificed for this to become a reality. We could get £9million for him
Yossi Benayoun – A controversial choice because Benayoun had excellent early season form and has rediscovered his best football in the last weeks of the season. The problem I have with him is that he is always talking like he is keeping his options open. Only yesterday he commented:
“It’s very difficult to speak now about next season. We don’t know what changes there will be [in the] players, the staff so I think it’s too early to speak. I don’t know personally even if I will be here or I will not be here. A lot of things can happen, so we have to wait and see. Liverpool is a great club and I enjoy it but a lot of things are happening in this moment. If it depended on me, I would stay here and retire in Liverpool. The fans are the best in the world but it depends on a lot of things. It will be very clear soon.”
Of course it is true that most of the players might be uncertain about their future after a poor season, but Benayoun has surely done enough in his own mind to merit the belief that he will stay? Perhaps there is some insecurity involved here but I cannot help but think he wants to jump ship. If that is the case, he needs to leave, we need players who are 100% committed to the club. £9million could be a good sale price.
Philipp Degen –The Swiss right back has been a big flop since he joined the club in 2008. Replacing Steve Finnan, Degen has had his fair share of serious injuries but since returning to first team action, Rafa has used him sparingly, using either Jamie Carragher or more recently Javier Mascherano in that position rather than a supposed specialist in that position that is Degen. Good at going forward, Degen lacks positional awareness at the back and can be caught out too far forward when the opposition counter-attacks. It is clear that Rafa doesn’t trust him and he will most likely be on his way in the summer. If Martin Kelly can stay fit, maybe he could be the immediate understudy for Glen Johnson, freeing up more funds to spend on other positions.
Diego Cavalieri – The Brazilian goalkeeper wants to return to Brazil in the summer and we could get a decent amount of money for him. With Peter Gulacsi and Dean Bouzanis as good reserve keepers, there maybe no need to replace him with another keeper, freeing up the money from his transfer for players in other positions.
Follow us on twitter @live4Liverpool
Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at editor@live4liverpool.com
DEGEN was a free, but as its known lfc will may well earn about 1 mill buy selling to a german or dutch club.
BABEL waiting and waiting for it to happen with him, just we havent got that time, he has had 3 years and had plenty of games so for me he has to go. ok people say he will go on the cheap, why, liverpool always over pay when getting other teams players, for me he still gets games for holland and also is still very young with champions league background, we will get close to what we paid which is what the club wants, we will get 10 mill back for him no worries.
REIRA- disgrace, ok as a player gave us left side balance, but what do you want for 8 mill, he never made it at city and did ok for lfc but he must go its clear, we will still get around 7 mill for this guy.
EL ZHAR- not doing it. 2 mill
PLESSIES – was ok and now not doing it, back to france or go to itay as i know it for around 2 mill
DARBY AND SPEARING – just because they are local, who cares there are not doing it, kelly is better and lucus is better tha spearing, because the idea would be to just keep lucus as the back up player. spearing there is no room as we also have other young player who could be better.
bottom line we need;
left winger
frontman- who can operate on the wings too.
left back
creative player.
there are so many great players out there but money talks, so at the moment i can not talk about players but its clear we need quality.
dream being dreams id go for;
david villa
david silva
jaun mata
phillip lahm
but thats not going to happen
next option;
tevez
turan
milner
joe cole
david luiz
We should replace Cavalieri to have someone who can push Reina to play at his best. We’ve seen this season with Kuyt how players all too comfortable can become very complacent and let their performances slip. Since Maxi Rodriguez has come in and competed with Kuyt the Dutchman’s been much better compared to the first half of the season.
You’d maybe get £24m-ish for that lot. We’d need to bring in a striker, a left mid, a left back and a goalkeeper, at least.
Samuel Charles, your ‘next option’ isn’t even remotely realistic. At a guess you’d be looking at £75m-£80m minimum in transfer fee’s, plus a huge amount in wages. [Also, David Luiz isn’t a left back. He’s basically Agger when it comes to position – a centre back who can fill in at left back if necessary.]
good post samuel, but remember last summer rafa wasn’t allowed to use all the money he raised, thats why he so upset now, and is looking for assurances it doesn’t happen again. also we have consistantly underpaid our players compared to the other big teams. we need new owners period. i think every lfc fan knows the left side along with a striker is where we need to bring in some big players. when rafa says everything has to right he’s right.
agree with a lot of what is written above (and in the posts), but shouldn’t the issue be that after 3 or 4 consecutive ZERO net spends in the transfer window, tht its overdue that the oners gave rafa some serious cash to spend ON TOP of whatever is raised from sales????
we need to spend in the region of £45-50M on a minimum of a striker, a creative attacking midfielder, a right-back & a left-back.
just gone back through the player sales/purchases figures for the time since feb 2nd 2007 when messrs hicks & gillette took over and its frightening what rafa’s net spend has been!
his net spend is 15.67 million quid – over 3.25 years – which comes out at UNDER 5 Million per year!!!!
how can anyone SERIOUSLY blame rafa for our current woes????????
fair do, but if liverpool as a club and in the eyes of the money men, er sorry the CON – MEN can not let rafa or who ever coaches the team spend money then we all know wahts going to happen.
do you all think that soon as rafa leaves a manager is going to come and say ” ill come to liverpool with still all the problems going on” er no. we should be lucky rafa is still trying to get better players in and fight for the club and liverpool. this is clear but so many fans do not see that he is trying to take on these con men and say look fund this club and invest, god bless him for this. dream liverpool tea please see below
REINA
JOHNSON CARRAGHER AGGER LAHM
SILVA MASCHERANO GERRARD
TORRES VILLA TEVEZ
I can see were you reds are comming from over rafas low transfer spending but i have to point out he has bought some good players ie crouch belamy keane alonso hyppia jon-arner to mention but a few these players would of won us the league last season and helped us in to champs league this year but he fell out with them or wouldnt play them in there right positions and the rest is history sold!. Now he wants to get shut of reira , babel ,benyoun ect how the hell do you build a team when you sell your players every season thats the reason we do not have a big enough squad and how ever you defend rafa these were his decisions to sell these players not the yanks i want rafa to get it right but cant see it he is to self centered as for babel this boy has the potential to be a john barnes pace power he just lacks self confidence in him self i would hate us to sell him and in two years time he turns in to the player we all believed he would be and is his lack of confidence down to rafa as lucas was the same but looks to have come out of it now . If we give rafa a large transfer kitty a big if ! and he buys top class players how long would it be before he fell out with them and sit them on there arses on big wages twidling there thumbs .No i believe its time for him to go and foe us to go for cappello or josey and last resort toshack because of his background and spanish conections .