It is understood that Torres will be getting a pay hike of £4m. That equates to £800 000 a year, which in turn means he will be earning £89 000 a week now as opposed to £74 000. I think this is well deserved. For a guy to come in and score 30 goals in your debut season if phenomena and he deserves every penny he gets. There have been suggestions this week that Premiership players are earning too much money and that the clubs are not making much profit. But for a player like Torres, he clearly deserves to earn that much if not more. Like in any job, if you put in the hard work and deliver the results, you boss will be happy with you and you will get a pay rise. Fernando has done just that. Now with more money, there is surely no way he can leave us.

A report today suggests that Juventus are pretty sure they will sign Alonso from Liverpool after Euro 2008. This deal, to me, is sounding like it is pretty much tied up and I think it just remains for the two teams to agree on a fee. It will be a great shame to loose Xabi as I still think he is a great midfielder. But now my only concern is that I hope we are certain of signing Gareth Barry from Aston Villa otherwise we would look very silly having sold Alonso and not have a replacement for him. Then we would have to start panic buying for a replacement and we end up buying another Salif Diao type of player!

We possibly got a glimpse of what was to come at Anfield next season when Stevie Gerrard and Gareth Barry combined for England to score the second goal in England’s 2 – 0 win over the USA yesterday. Gerrard was easily the man of the match as he put in yet another commanding performance in midfield and rounded it off by scoring a brilliant team goal. Barry provided Gerrard with a delightful through ball which Gerrard latched onto and produced a calm finish. If Barry does end up coming to Liverpool I think him and Gerrard can provide a great partnership if last nights performance by the two was anything to go by. Barry could supply the ammunition for Gerrard and Gerrard can feed Torres. Read the rest of this entry »

The deal to bring Italian, Andrea Dossena to Liverpool may take a bit longer than expected as Fiorentina and Juventus join the chase for the left-back. It seems like Udinese are waiting to receive offers from these other two Italian teams for Dossena and obviously they will take the best offer. I think Liverpool have bid £6m for Dossena but with these other two teams now in the fray we may be forced to push our bid up to as much as £8m. This I think would be the most we have ever paid for a defender so he better be worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

In an exclusive report in The Mirror yesterday, it was suggested that Rafa may be targeting 22-year old, Liam Fontaine from Bristol City. Fontaine is a centre-back and I wonder why Rafa would be after him? We have great cover in central defence with Carragher, Hyypia, Agger and Skrtel. We even have Jack Hobbs who can do a great job. I am sure if Rafa is to sign Fontaine he would be ‘one for the future’.

Maybe Rafa is thinking long term. Hyypia has a season or two left in him and Carragher is not getting any younger. So maybe it would not be a bad move on Rafa’s part to get a young centre back and groom him for the future.

After suggestions this morning that Chelsea may be planning a bid for Torres, Rafa has come out to quickly quash any speculation and he says that Torres is not for sale. I thought as much. It would have been a huge shock if Liverpool were willing to part ways with Torres after the season he had. The exciting thing is that I believe Torres can only get better and that is a scary prospect for the rest of the Premiership. But one has to wonder, where did all this speculation come from that Torres may be leaving? Read the rest of this entry »

I almost fell off my chair this morning when I read that Chelsea were planning to make a £50m bid for Fernando Torres. But the report was quick to say that Torres would not even consider a move to Chelsea and he wants to stay at Anfield and become a legend. With the kind of season Fernando had, it is no surprise that everyone wishes they had him in their team, but hard luck to those other teams; Torres is ours and will be for a long time to come. Read the rest of this entry »

David Bentley has been on my wish list for a long time now and news this morning suggests that he has rejected a new deal at Blackburn and he wants to move to a bigger team. I have admired Bentley throughout the season and I feel he could do a great job for us down the right wing. The question now is whether Mark Hughes will allow Bentley to leave and if so, for how much? Read the rest of this entry »

I was reading just now and there was a headline saying: Benitez fires off title warning. I did not know what to make of this headline so I decided to read the article. Basically Rafa is saying that there is no way we can compete for the title because Manure and Chelski continue to spend big money to buy big players and we can not match the amounts of money they are spending. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been doing my rounds around the various websites and newspapers this morning and it is all the same come this time of the year. Every player is linked with moving to a new team in the summer. There are even suggestions that Gerrard is on his way to Italy so to Torres. I laugh at some of this! These newspapers are out to make money so they have to have a catchy headline so people buy their paper. Something like “Torres is leaving Liverpool” well sell any paper. Read the rest of this entry »