Should they stay or should they go? 5 players the Reds may sell

Yossi Benayoun – A player of prodigious talent, Benayoun can weave his magic through defences with his close control and superb eye for a pass – that’s if you find him on a good day of course. On others, his performances can be indifferent and he fades in and out of games without making any real impact on the match. Now 30, there are not many more years left in the legs and his apparent desire to leave the club has left me and other fans pretty impatient with him. With rumours that he has already agreed a contract with Chelsea before a fee has been agreed with Liverpool, there does seem to be too many indications that he wants to leave. He has said in the past that he would stay if it was up to him, and now with Rafa Benitez gone, he can say he wishes to stay if he so chooses. If he does want to leave though, let him leave, we need only committed players playing for Liverpool FC. If he does go to Chelsea then we can be safe in the knowledge that he may be a squad player rather than first team regular, hopefully giving us some cash to invest in a younger, more consistent replacement.

Ryan Babel – The headache that is the 23 year old Dutch forward. Do we stick or do we twist? A man with lightning pace and powerful shot, tempered by his innate ability to lose the ball or to run into cul-de-sacs only to cross weakly with his standing leg that is his left peg. Part of me always wants to see Babel prove his critics wrong, and go on a run of form to justify the £11.5million spent on him. Always a raw talent, the question has always been, will he ever mature into something more? A new manager maybe able to get the best out of him but at this time, can Liverpool afford to keep him? We may be best served getting rid of him and getting the most we can out of him to hopefully invest in another player – predicated of course on the condition the manager gets ALL the money from his sale.

Albert Riera – A no-brainer for me this one. Not only did the Spanish winger undermine the team and the manager before an important Europa league tie, there was also an incident on the training ground which lowered him in my estimation. He has publicly stated in recent weeks he would like to continue with the Reds now Benitez has gone, but after putting his own self interests above the teams, thinking more about his own World Cup chances than the need to be united at a difficult time for the club, he is shown that loyalty to the club is secondary to him. A time for players to be 100% committed to playing for Liverpool, Riera is not a man you would want to be in the trenches with.

Philipp Degen – A right back who clearly can’t play in his favoured position right back, the Swiss player loves roaming from the right hand side, controlling the ball and passing to team-mates in the final third. Shame he forgets to do the most important thing in his position – defend. Degen has a great tendency to be found up the field and out of position, not unlike Glen Johnson but the England international at least has the pace and the know-how to get back when needed. His positional play is consistently poor and he may not be sold for very much, but we have an apt replacement in Martin Kelly, if he can stay fit of course.

Diego Cavalieri – Moving back to Brazil most likely in the summer, Cavalieri has been solid as a number two goalkeeper but he has found it impossible to displace the classy Pepe Reina in goal. Another player who might not need to be replaced with Gulacsi and Bouzanis in the wings, we could also look at a few free goalkeepers to be understudy to our world class keeper.

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Football FanCast writer Oscar Pye-Jeary documents his time in South Africa following England in the 2010 World Cup. (England v USA).

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