Once again, it seems that Rafa will be forced in to player sales – and remains the manager trying to claw back the Premiership with one hand tied behind his back.
Last year’s biggest summer signing has now departed and a large chunk of the money spent on him has been returned to Anfield – so where has that gone to?
Either way, as part of his new contract Benitez had insisted that he should be better informed about his buying power rather than the normal guessing game. While the figure won’t have us up there with the United, Chelsea or even Man City’s of this world, Rafa can now begin for the summer clearout.
Speaking yesterday Rafa said:
“Every single year it is important to sign good players, the right players. This year will be the same.”
“We know we have better players than before and it will be more difficult to find better players than we have now.
“But still we have to do it.
“We are working very hard during the whole season, looking and watching players. I think that we will be ready.”
“We are not talking about names and money,” added Benitez.
“We are working on targets and we will try to do things as quickly as possible and as cheap as possible.
“More or less I have an idea (of how much money will be available). Clearly we have to work hard and maybe we will need to sell someone.
“We’d have to sell players to increase the money we’ll need, I think so.”
Daniel Agger and Ryan Babel are two players widely tipped for the Anfield exit door.
We await the publication of Liverpool or (Kop Football Ltd’s) accounts this summer with interest. It appears the club are now paying more on interest to the banks than on new football players.