Dear Lucas,

I hope I find you well and that you are enjoying your time away in Switzerland for the pre-season training. It is great to see some football action again as life is never the same without football. The reason I write this letter to you is so that I can try reach out to you before the season starts. I am sure you are aware with all the hype surrounding Xabi Alonso leaving us this summer. You may have a clearer picture on what is going on but from what I can see, it looks like Xabi will be leaving us this summer. I am not too sure how you feel about Xabi leaving. You probably will be sad to see him go as he is a fine player for us but then again, his departure could open up the door for you and you could finally establish yourself as a Liverpool regular.

I will not lie to you, you are not my biggest fan. I think what disappoints me the most about you is that when we signed you, I stood at the top of the world and told everyone how great a player you were and how you are going to be an Anfield legend. Your CV was impressive, I mean, who would doubt someone who was named Brazilian player of the year? I even watched footage of you when you were still at Gremio and I was highly impressed. But for some reason you have just not replicated that form for us and as a result you have even dropped down the pecking order for the Brazil national team.

Some have said that you have taken a while to settle into life in England but you have been around for a while now so that should not be an excuse. Some say you have not gotten a long consistent run in the team, fair enough, but you have been given your opportunities as Rafa has stuck by you, you have just not shown us and Rafa how good you are and thus he drops you. Maybe now if Xabi leaves you will get all the game time you need and finally proven to us that you can deliver the goods.

I just want to reach out to you and ask you to please finally deliver for us this season. I believe that you have talent in abundance and that you can be a star for us and maybe even be better than Alonso. I know a lot of fans are not behind you but please prove them wrong this coming season. I do not only want to see you establish yourself as a regular for us but I also want to see you in the Brazil national team that will be coming to South Africa in the World Cup.

Please please please Lucas, make us proud this season. I know you can do it.

YNWA
Ron

I was going through the pictures of our pre-season training in Switzerland and I saw images of Andriy Voronin! I had totally forgotten that he existed! I had hoped that after his spell at Hertha Berlin last season that he would have made his move a permanent one. I am not the biggest fan of Voronin at all, infact I am not a fan. He just did not deliver for us when we signed him and as a result, Rafa shipped him off to Germany on loan. If Hertha had qualified for the Champions League then I am sure Voronin would have stayed there. But alas he is back at Liverpool and still wearing the number 10 shirt!

It does not look like he will be leaving so I guess we are stuck with him! I just hope that he steps up this season and delivers the goals. He could just be the person we need to lead the line upfront when Torres is injured or rested. I would be more than happy if he can give us the kind of return he gave for Hertha Berlin: 11 goals in 20 games. That would actually be an amazing return.

Voronin could just save us millions from signing a new striker if he starts to deliver for us. What are your thought on Voronin?

Reports in the Liverpool Echo this morning suggest that Xabi Alonso has told Rafa Benitez that he wants to leave Liverpool and go to Real Madrid. This is the kind of news as a Liverpool fan I do not like to hear. For me Alonso was our player of the season last term and loosing him will be a huge blow to our ambitions for this coming season. They say that no one player is bigger than the club so if Alonso really wants to go then I think Rafa should just let him. There is no point hanging onto a guy who does not want to play for you.

The problem now is going to be the transfer fee for Alonso. Rafa wants £35m for Alonso but Real are only willing to offer £27m. Alonso still has 3 years left on his current contract so all this virtually means that there is no point in a player honouring his contract as he can decide to leave anytime he so wishes to. I can understand where Alonso is coming from for wanting to make this move. Real Madrid are building up an amazing team with the likes of Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema and maybe Alonso feels he should be part of the ‘All Star’ team. Whether this Real team will win anything this season still remains a mystery to me. Remember what happened to the last player who wanted to leave Liverpool and go play for Madrid? Michael Owen….Look what has happened to him now. If I were Alonso I would stay with Liverpool for this coming season as I am very confident that this is the season when we finally win the league.

What really worries me though about loosing Alonso is who we will get to replace him? There are very few players of his caliber in the game today. The only one I can think of right now is AC Milan’s Andrea Pirlo. Since Milan lost Kaka, I do not see them letting Pirlo go. The other option would be bringing Stevie G back into central midfield and then bringing in someone like Eto’o or Bojan to partner Torres upfront. As much as that make look good on paper, I would not like to see Stevie going back into central midfield now as I believe his best position is just off Torres.

But in Rafa I trust and if he does end up letting Alonso go, I am sure he has a Plan B, C, D and E up his sleeve.

It is the transfer silly season and one will right virtually anything to sell a newspaper or drive traffic to their website. I came across a story in the Belfast Telegraph this morning that suggested that Franck Ribery could be on his way to Liverpool this summer. Obviously I laughed this off and I searched for any other websites or newspapers that may be running this story and so far no one else has hinted at this possible transfer. I found their reasoning for this transfer to be interesting: they say that a betting company which slashed the odds of Owen’s transfer to Manchester United before the deal was done have now also slashed the odds of Ribery joining Liverpool from 66/1 to 8/13! So in essence they are saying they have insider knowledge about the transfer market!

As much as I would love to see Ribery come to Liverpool, I seriously doubt it will happen. My odds for this move would be 1 000/1! Ribery is one of the hottest properties on the market now and Real Madrid have not bought him yet, although they want to. Then you have the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United who also want him. Why I feel we stand no chance in getting him is simple: we do not have the money to buy him. Ribery will not be sold for anything less than £40m and where would we get that???

It would be a mouthwatering prospect though having Ribery, Gerrard and Torres on the same team. That is the kind of attack force we need to win us the title. And in all fairness, a club like ours should be making signings such as Ribery!

Here we go again! Fabio Aurelio is injured…again! Aurelio has had some bad luck with injuries ever since he joined us from Valencia. He always seems to get injured when he is actually going through a good spell. Well the latest injury is rather bizarre. Aurelio twisted his knee whilst playing with his children in the garden and as a result he will require surgery and is likely to be out of action for 6 months. This means that Aurelio will miss the rest of the year.

I am a huge fan of Aurelio, especially after THAT freekick at Old Trafford. But besides that, his game has improved ever since we signed him and he became Rafa’s first choice left back. Now Rafa has to make a plan! Dossena was set to leave this summer and go back to Italy but now with the news of Aurelio, will Rafa still let Dossena go? For me, I will be happy if Insua becomes our first choice left back in the absence of Aurelio but we still need cover.

We have signed Chris Mavinga from Paris Saint Germain who is also a left back. Mavinga is only 18 years old so he does not have a lot of experience so I do not think we can intrust him to be our second choice left back. So with that said, I think Rafa may just decide to hang onto Dossena following this Aurelio injury.

A thought dawned upon me today with regards to the possibility of loosing Mascherano to Barcelona in the summer. It looks like Alonso may just stay now since Real Madrid are saying they can’t afford the 35m pounds we want for him. But if Mascherano leaves, we will need another holding midfielder. Lucas has stepped in at times for Masch but I have little faith in Lucas. How about Agger filling in the Mascherano role?

Agger is a center back by profession but I am sure he can be turned into a very effective defensive midfielder. He can obviously tackle well and he is one of the best center backs I have ever seen with the ball at his feet. He can pick out a good pass and as a center back he is great at stepping with the ball out of defence and launching an attack. And not to forget his rocket of a left foot.

What do you think about this?

It looks like most of the signings so far this summer at Liverpool have been for new deals for current players instead of new signings. I am not complaining about that at all as it is important that we keep our key players who have served us well over the past few seasons. Today Yossi Benayoun follows Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger and Dirk Kuyt in committing his long-term future to the club. The 29-year-old Israeli international put pen to paper on a two-year extension to his current deal this afternoon and he will remain at Anfield until 2013.

I am a big fan of Yossi now. It took me a while to get to like him as his early performances in a red shirt were not that great but last season he stepped up his game big time and chipped in with nine goals. The two most memorable were the one against Real Madrid in Madrid and then his winner against Fulham at Craven Cottage in the last minute.

What I like about Yossi is how clever he is, when he runs between the lines and the defenders can not pick him up. He can not only spot a great pass but he can also finish. He gives us a great option when he comes off the bench or starts the game. For me he is rather similar to Spain’s David Silva and thus I would not be too upset if Silva does not join us this summer as we have Yossi.

Two of my favourite young players at Liverpool have agreed on new 3 years deals at Liverpool. Midfielder Jay Spearing and full-back Stephen Darby - both 20 - are expected to put pen to paper on the new deals later this week. It is great news that we are able to retain our own local homegrown talent as in some cases they would have decided to go to mediocre Premiership teams in the bid to get regular first team football.

It is important for us to keep our youth team players but at the same time, after they have made such a commitment from their end, it is only right for Rafa to give them a fair crack at playing in the first team.

If Alonso and / or Mascherano leave this summer then we are going to be very thin in midfield and may have to sign some replacements. But if that is the case, I would not mind seeing Spearing coming in and being the ‘new’ Mascherano of the team. He has what it takes. He has the short stocky built of Mascherano and they play a similar type of football. I am not saying Spearing is as good as Mascherano, he is probably very far from it, but I think given the opportunity he would not let us down.

As for Darby, now that we have signed Glen Johnson, Darby can not be a regular right back in the first team but if Arbeloa does leave for Real Madrid then Darby could just work his way up to fighting the ever injured Deggen for the back up right back slot. Personally I would pick Darby over Deggen any day. We have to give these guys and the rest of the youth team players a shot at the first team.

This time last season, Rafa made what I think was the best signing of the summer by bringing back Sammy Lee to Liverpool as his assistant. Now this time round, he has made another very important signing, King Kenny Dalglish is now back!

Dalglish will assume a senior role at the Liverpool Academy and will also act as a club ambassador working with the commercial side of the business around the world.

Kenny’s role in the academy must be the most important role he is going to take up as he works alongside new Academy Director Frank McParland.

With the way the game is going and with all these crazy transfer fees being thrown around, I guess it is time for teams to be serious about their academies and rather groom players who in four or five years time could become starts for the first team and thus we would not need to go and spend millions in signing players.

One thing I really hope will change with Kenny’s arrival is seeing these players who come through the ranks getting a crack at first team football. Kenny is very knowledgeable about the game and I am sure he will know when a young player is ready for the first team or not. I have seen the likes of Darby, Spearing, Pacheco and Nemeth do well for the reserves and youth team but they have not been given a crack at regular first team football. Maybe they are not ready, I do not know. But if one person would know and would be able to tell Rafa, “Give this kid a chance” it is Kenny and that is why I am glad he is back.

I am not sure whether to be shocked, or to laugh at the news that Michael Owen has signed for Manchester United. I am shocked in the sense that I can not believe United would resort to buying a ‘has been’ player with all the millions they have from selling Ronaldo. The reason I would laugh is that no one else in the Premiership seemed to want to buy Owen except for United. Owen had to put together a brochure to market himself and I think Sir Alex liked what he saw in this brochure!

Since when have you ever heard of a player who has to market himself like a piece of furniture in a brochure so that a club would sign him? Michael Owen has really sunk low! Here is a player we loved at Liverpool. He scored the goals for us and became a huge Kop favourite. He arguably has one of the best ever World Cup goals with his strike against Argentina and having done all of that you now have to market yourself with a brochure???

Word is that Owen really wanted to come back to Liverpool but Rafa did not seem to keen on the idea so thus Owen had to settle for United. With all his injury problems I wonder how many games he will actually play for United and if Sir Alex will even rely on Owen to play in the big games or he is going to spend most of his time on the bench and playing in the Carling Cup?

If Owen really wants to get back into the England World Cup team then he has to be playing regular football which I doubt he will get at United. Maybe if he had gone to Hull or Stoke then he would be ‘the main man’ and be in the spotlight again.

Well what’s done is done and we will await to see what kind of a reaction Owen gets when he returns to Anfield wearing a United shirt!