Rafa Benitez’s January transfer fund will again be nothing, even if he does sell players to raise funds for himself, according to reports today.
The Times and The Guardian both claim Benitez will be restricted to loan signings primarily, even if he were to offload the likes of Ryan Babel and Andrea Dossena for significant transfer fees.
In the summer Benitez was instructed to reduce the club’s debt and had to sell in order to buy players.
The Guardian today reports:
Rafael Benítez will have to rely on the £1.5m capture of Maxi Rodríguez and possibly one loan signing to revitalise Liverpool’s squad during this transfer window even if the club succeed in raising more than £16m through player sales.
With Benitez having made good progress on the Maxi deal, and looking to have agreed deals to offload Andriy Voronin and Andrea Dossena for almost £6m combined, you would expect he would be able to reinvest that money in the playing squad, but seemingly not.
Tony Barrett, in The Times, explains:
In August, Benítez broke even on incomings and outgoings in August and in the previous transfer window, last January, the sale of Robbie Keane to Tottenham Hotspur for a fee in the region of £15 million was the only significant activity involving Liverpool.
Should Liverpool go a third transfer window without making any significant investment in their squad it will serve only to reinforce Benítez’s recent assertion that the club’s priority has shifted from trophy gathering to debt reduction.
If Rafa isn’t able to bring in new players, that may explain why he has resisted bids from Birmingham and other clubs to sell Ryan Babel.
Fans can easily speculate that Liverpool’s owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett are planning for the potential failure to finish inside the top four this season. Some may argue a better solution would be to allow Benitez to at least reinvest what he earns and give the team a better chance to claim that all-important fourth place.
Liverpool Football Club is in the wrong hands.
