Christian Poulsen – Click Liverpool (13/07/11) have claimed that FC Copenhagen are interested in a move for the midfielder. Poulsen played for Copenhagen for two years before joining Schalke in 2002, and could return to the Danish capital. A fee of £2.5million is suggested in the report.
The story however has no basis for such speculation. No quotes or even a source is cited. As such it was unsurprising to hear SkySports (14/07/11) reporting the following day that Poulsen’s agent stated to Onside.dk:
“No, Christian Poulsen is not on his way to FC Copenhagen and he has not spoken to them. Christian Poulsen’s future is at Liverpool”.
Dani Pacheco – A potential loan move to Coventry has fallen through after Liverpool decided against a deal, much to the disappointment of Coventry boss Andy Thorn – who stated to the Coventry Telegraph (15/07/11):
“We were very close on Dani and got knocked back. We thought we had him in the bag but these things happen, but that’s the type of quality we are looking at…..”
The report claims that Liverpool rate the player so highly they might decide to use him in their own squad during the coming season. This remains to be seen however, much may depend on incoming transfers over the next six weeks or so.
Brad Jones – According to TalkSPORT (15/07/11) the Australian goalkeeper is free to quit the club following the signing of Alexandre Doni from Roma. Jones is clearly not in Dalglish’s plans. This was demonstrated last season when Peter Gulacsi leapfrogged the former Middlesboro keeper to become Pepe Reina’s first choice backup, whilst Jones, a Roy Hodgson signing – was loaned out to Derby.
A loan move back to Middlesboro has since been touted, according to The Mirror (16/07/11).
Chris Mavinga – As reported in last week’s TTC – Mavinga has been linked with moves to both Belgian Champions Genk and French side Rennes. Goal.com (15/07/11) reports that Mavinga has a provisional date set for a medical next week, citing Ouest France as their source for this information. The medical will take place on Tuesday (today – 19/07/11) and a fee of approximately £1m has been suggested.
Emiliano Insua – Roma continue to be linked with the Argentine left-back according to Football Italia (17/07/11). Any potential move may be some way off however, his agent has stating that:
“Emiliano has returned to Liverpool after the loan spell at Galatasaray. Now we have to see if he is in the English club’s plans.”
Like Aquilani and David Ngog, a good performance against a Malaysian XI may have brought Insua into first team contention for the season ahead. Those who follow the ‘tweeting’ world may have noted his comment which was mentioned on Kop Source (17/07/11). “I am feeling Liverpool player again!!! Really happy!”
That’s your lot for this instalment. As expected, this week the media were more concerned by Liverpool’s signings than in outgoing players. So far this summer Liverpool have sold, released or loaned the following players.
Paul Konchesky – SOLD – Leicester – £1.5m
Gerardo Bruna – SOLD – Blackpool – 750k
Stephen Darby – SEASON LOAN – Rochdale
Jason Banton – RELEASED
Deale Chamberlain – RELEASED
Alex Cooper – RELEASED
Sean Highdale – RELEASED
Nikola Saric – RELEASED
As we can see, there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of offloading unneeded players at LFC. This has been the first week that Liverpool have received a fee for any of their players.
The importance of clearing out any ‘dead-wood’ from the squad this season cannot be understated – as any money gained will go towards signing new recruits for next season. If Liverpool’s huge wage bill is not brought under control this summer, it may severely restrict our ability to invest further in the transfer market. Getting rid of the big earners who have made small contributions to the side could make all the difference in terms of giving Dalglish the financial backing/spending power to build the side he wants – A side which fans will be hoping is good enough to bring Liverpool back into top-four contention in the coming season.
Failure to offload such overpaid players as the summer progresses could cause us to miss out on the one or two additional quality signings we may need before the 11/12 season begins. If an extra £20m-£40m is generated via sales (or perhaps more in relation to fees and wages combined) for Dalglish to reinvest in the squad, it could make all the difference next year.
Additional sales could mean the difference between getting another player of Suarez’ class and quality – or not. An extra £20m-class player or two would certainly not go amiss. The more spending power we have, the better.
Again, I hope you enjoyed reading this edition of the TTC. Be sure to check back here each Tuesday for the weekly review of transfer speculation on outgoing players at LFC. By next Tuesday (26/07/11) – there may be more concrete developments to report as the squad takes shape for next season.
As always, any feedback or suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for reading! Any ideas, comments or suggestions can be sent to me at barryjourno@hotmail.com. Many thanks to those who have sent me kind e-mails in the last week, your support and the effort you went to in mailing me are greatly appreciated.
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This week it is former LFC WAG Claudine Keane!
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Great piece Barry. The owners have been great so far but now it seems we need to be a bit more creative in our dealings. The big savings is normally on the wages eg. Torres left, we got a fantastic price, saved on his wages and managed to buy in two brilliant players who, if im not mistaken are on less money combined than Torres alone.
Keep up the good work
we sold torres and got 1 brilliant player and now we got another brilliant player in downing. Gerrard, Carra, Agger, Dirk, Raul, Suarez, Downing, Aquaman, Reina and Kelly will be flying high.