The longest running transfer saga of the summer is finally over. Liverpool have agreed a fee, thought to be in the region of £30million with Real Madrid for Xabi Alonso. I am saddened today as we have lost a great player but bigger players have left Liverpool in the past so we should be okay. The moment Alonso decided he wanted to join Real Madrid, I knew that it was only a matter of time before he left.

What I am really impressed with with regards to this transfer is that Rafa seems to have stuck by his guns and did not back down or get bullied by Real Madrid. It seems Rafa was stuck on not letting Alonso go for less than his asking price of £30million. I can only imagine if Rick Parry was still at Liverpool and was tasked with handling this transfer, it would have been resolved a very long time ago but we probably would have only gotten £15million!

Now all that is left is for Alonso to have a medical in Madrid on Wednesday as he has not flown out with the rest of the team tonight to Norway. I am pretty sure the medical will go smoothly. We now have to wait and see who Rafa is going to buy to replace Alonso. With a possible £30million kitty, Rafa could get Roma’s Alberto Aquilani for £20million and still have £10million left over to strengthen in other areas. The next couple of days are going to be crucial as we need to sign someone rather soon as the season is about to kickoff.

I never wanted Xabi to leave but the moment he declared he he wants to join Real Madrid you could sense his heart was no longer with us and in cases like that, it is always best for the player to leave. We want players who want to where the Red shirt and not have their minds on other teams. But thank you for the good times Xabi. My letter to you will follow shortly.

I had hoped that it would not go this far but reports this morning say that Xabi Alonso has handed in a written transfer request to Liverpool as he seeks to move to Real Madrid. This is it I guess! Rafa now has no choice but to sell Alonso as clearly the player does not want to play for us anymore. The question now is, “How much are we going to get for Alonso?”

We had wanted £30m for Alonso but Real have refused to pay that. So now that Alonso has handed in his request, the ball is firmly in Madrid’s court as whatever they offer us we may be forced to accept as we just have to get rid of Alonso. There is suggestion that Real have agreed to pay us £27.5m which I would take without thinking twice now.

Alonso himself had hoped that this saga would not go this far as he had hoped the two teams would agree on a fee without him having to publicly come out and hand in a transfer request. I personally do not know what to make of this. I did not want Alonso to go but the fact that he wants to leave makes me feel gutted. We are going to loose a great player but hopefully we can sign someone else similar to him with the cash we get. Let us not jump to conclusions just yet until this deal is signed, sealed and delivered.

Reports today say that Xabi Alonso flew into Madrid last night as he seeks to complete his move to Real Madrid. It is said that Liverpool have given Madrid 48 hours to come up with the cash to complete the deal. “How much do we really want for Alonso?” no one seems to know. Madrid do not seem to want to pay much for Alonso. The Spanish giants’ president Florentino Perez said: ‘Some people obviously thought that because we said we wanted more Spanish players, they could ask for fees which don’t correspond to reality.’

It is funny how the price of English players in England is astronomical! Just look at how much we spent on Glen Johnson. So now Spanish teams do not want to break the bank for Spanish players? That does not make sense. Madrid should pay a high price for Alonso thus I agree with Rafa for sticking to his guns and saying he does not want anything less than £30million for Alonso.

But now that Alonso is in Spain, I will not be surprised if we hear any second now that he has completed his move to Real and they have accepted to give us the cash. Watch this space as we will keep you updated on the latest news with regards to Alonso. Hopefully in the next 48 hours we will know what is happening.

All the people of Bangkok, it seemed, woke up on Wednesday, threw on their Liverpool jerseys, picked out their Liverpool scarves, and headed with a single-minded determination to the Rajamangala Stadium hours before Liverpool’s match with the Thai national team. I’m pretty sure if I had ventured out while the match was on, the city that always appeared to be on the move would have featured deserted streets, empty cars, restaurants with no business going, and pin-drop silence everywhere except in the immediate vicinity of Carra, Nando, Rafa and Javi. Swine flu may be the latest disease to cause paranoia in Bangkok, but for the moment, it was football fever running rampant. Hand sanitizers and face masks were shoved on by the security personnel at the entrance, and once you dodged that, it was time to find a way to get inside. Even at 4, four hours before kick-off, fans were crowded outside, trying to get in, and many hundreds had already taken their seats and begun the wait. The Kop stand filled up the quickest, with a sea of red with an asssortment of flags, banners and many exhortations requesting Xabi Alonso to continue his career at Anfield. They probably weren’t encouraged by his absence from the teamlist and the bench, but Rafa tried to put an end to the speculation by saying he and Benyoun were injured. It probably didn’t work, and I’m certain the rumours have got another piece of evidence.

I also had a long wait to get past, but looking around me at all the Liverpool love was great. The only thing that I could’ve done without were the two very enthusiastic Thai DJs spinning some terrible electro-techno-hiphop-mishmash excuse for music, over and over again. But those too were forgotten, as a professional opera-like rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone was followed by a few Beatles numbers. Quite a nice backdrop to the warm-up going on on the field below.

The match itself, well, you know it by now 1-1, and two completely different Liverpool teams played both halves (with the exception of Babel, who played a bit of the second half). Babel scored early and threatened a couple more times, but it was the Torres effect that was fascinating to watch. He had just ten minutes to get Liverpool a winner, and man he tried. With his first touch, he tore open the defence and raced away to goal, but missed. He was in the mix again a few more times, and the liveliest on the pitch by far, compared to all who had been on the pitch since the opening whiste. If only he can stay relatively injury-free this season, Torres can easily get another bagful of goals. Babel could do with a bit more consistency, Carra was his usual rock-solid self, and even had a hand in the first of Liverpool’s pre-season goals, the other kids had their sloppy moments, but Insua wasn’t bad. Hopefully Skrtel and El Zhar will pick themselves up soon.

Now all we can do is wait for the real games to begin.

The last time Glen Johnson got a taste of exactly the kind of fanaticism that awaits travelling football players in Bangkok, he was wearing distinctly different colours. The blue of Chelsea, to be precise.

At Tuesday’s press conference in the ballroom of the Grand Erawan hotel, the Englishman was all smiles, all ready to answer questions, and as Rafa put it, all ready to play. And he looked just right in the red of Liverpool FC. “It’s been fantastic. Everybody’s been great to me, helped me settle in. It’s brilliant here in Bangkok, all those fans in the Liverpool shirts, it’s a great sight to see,” he said, and added a hope that he could come up with the kind of consistent display he had last season with Portsmouth.

Today was a busy day for the squad, with the division of duties all too evident to anyone who happened to be out on a cloudy day in the Thai capital. When I was returning home, a cavalcade of policemen on bikes furiously signalled for our car to stop so a string of minivans could pass by, and yes, they contained Liverpool FC”s finest, eager for a bit of sightseeing. A few went to the Grand Palace, while others were packed off to do their various promotional commitments and football clinics. They probably did squeeze in a few hours rest before the nearly two-hour long training session that was to take place at the Rajamangala Stadum in the evening, passes to which were very kindly handed out to me by Steve McMahon, who is very nice to talk to, even if you are tongue-tied and star-struck.

At the beginning of the evening’s practice, the players confined themselves to two small circles in the centre of the field, but the stadium had been taken over by roaring, screaming, flag-waving supporters who were well-versed in all the Liverpool anthems. ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers’ was repeated again and again as the man himself knocked a few balls around, along with emphatic cries of ‘Xabi don’t go’, ‘Mascherano don’t leave for Barca’, and requests to Fernando Torres to convey the same message to his countrymate: ‘Tell Xabi no go to Real, tell Xabi to stay, Fernando!’

Torres, meanwhile, contented himself with running laps around the athletics track at the stadium, checking his watch every now and then, and was soon joined by Yossi Benayoun, Alvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso. They deigned to raise their hands to the crowd now and then, every time bringing up a fresh wave of cheers. In the kickabout that followed, the following were moments worthy of some noise: Johnson’s excellent backheel flick of a pass in the middle, Pepe’s quick recovery for a save that was nearly a lost cause, Carra getting stuck into the opposition, and so what if it happened to be his own clubmate, he was on a different team for the moment.

Torres and Alonso went off early back to the locker room to thunderous applause, and it’s pretty certain that the Spanish contingent will play a role only in the end credits of Wednesday’s match. Johnson is likely to be in the first XI, and after less than impressive results in their last two friendlies, Liverpool will look to get in a win on their pre-season tour of Asia. But regardless of the result, their visit here will be referred to time and again amongst the hordes of fanatics who have been thronging the hotel and stadium the last two days for a glimpse of a world they only see on television between August and May each season. They lined the path inside and outside the stadium gates once it was time for the players to leave the stadium after their practice on Tuesday night, and waited excitedly in the hope of getting another chance to get close to their heroes. There was no sign of that happening anytime soon, but they were happy to bide time discussing all things Liverpool, and it’ll stay in their minds as a happy memory forever.

I know I’ll never forget it.

We all know someone, friend family or foe who has hurt their back/damaged their spine and never been the same since. Well now we have that problem. If Gerrard is the heart of our team then Alonso and Mascherano are the spine that without BOTH of them we will surrender the middle of the pitch to everyone!

Now hear me out, I feel that we are 1 maybe 2 signings away from winning the league and I truly mean that. At last Benitez has 8 world class players that should always be on the starting line up: Reina, Johnson, Agger Carragher, Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard, Torres and 5 quality first team players of Kuyt, Skrtel, Benayoun, Reira, Insua (who should be left back next season), then the class of “could do better” of Lucas, Babel and Voronin. If all stay fit and Benitez doesn’t play spin the bottle on the team sheet then we will win it………………..IF we can hold onto Alonso and Mascherano.

Alonso is courted by Madrid, Mascherano by Barca and you can understand why they would both be interested but we need to offer them something that they can’t, a place in history.
We heard Benitez in the press conference last week about both having good contracts and they should honour their contracts as Liverpool took the chance and developed their careers. Not the best pep talk in the world after the Alonso/Barry fiasco last year and also considering the tax in Spain is 30% and not the 50% for them in the UK, but this season we must stop the Manc’s from the 19th title.

You take away one you might as well break the team up and start again because they are the spine that allows our team to pass and move. So how do your cure a bad back when you can’t offer the pain relief (wage’s), you offer them something that no-one else can – belief!

If they stay for one season and we win the league then they will believe, believe that they are part of something, the next generation of Liverpool FC!

So Rafa, if you are reading this, show them belief and keep them for one year, hell do the Ronaldo deal of agreeing a ridiculous fee with Alonso/Real for the 1st of July 2010 because if we keep them and they win, then they will never want to leave!

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.

I am getting increasing frustrated with all this talk about Alonso leaving us this summer. I do not want Alonso to leave as I think he is a critical part of our team. There are very few who are better at passing the ball in the game today than him. I can understand why he would want to leave, it is no secret that he had a fallout with Rafa last summer when Rafa wanted to sell him to fund the Gareth Barry deal. But Rafa found no buyers and Alonso stayed and had his best season ever in a red shirt. Torres has come out and said that for us to challenge this season we need to keep our best players and I fully agree with him. Alonso is one of our best players.

But then on the other hand, if Alonso wants to leave and does not want to play for Liverpool anymore then I think he should go. There is no point having a player in the team who does not want to play for you. My concern with that though is who will we get to replace Alonso?

Gareth Barry would have been a good option but he has now gone to Manchester City. If we get the £35m Rafa is demanding for Alonso, we will have some decent enough cash in the kitty to buy a decent replacement for Alonso but I have no idea who.

Do you think we should allow Alonso to go to Madrid? If he does go, who do you think we should sign to replace him?

At these times in the world of football, transfer rumours are flying quicker than the time it takes for Cristiano Ronaldo to go down after a feather touch, but amidst all the reported negotiations, Liverpool just sunk deeper into the money crunch mire. The club’s parent company lost 42.6 million pounds according to the most recent accounts, and all indications are that Rafa Benitez may be forced to sell to get in the funds, and also set his sights lower in the transfer market. Gareth Barry is already out of sight, and even Portsmouth’s Glen Johnson will probably not be wearing the Reds’ strip come next season. Benitez mentioned last month how the club’s spending power isn’t able to match up to Manchester United, and though at that time I remember thinking we can’t keep making excuses for losing the Premiership when we were so close, now I realize we really do need some quality signings, and the money to do that too, of course. Tom Hicks and George Gillett apparently have a 350m pound debt, and a deadline of July 24 by which they must clear it. The repercussions from that will obviously tell when Liverpool go shopping for next season.

The worst thing that could come out of this, probably, would be the possible farewell to Xabi Alonso. Last year, the Spaniard was exceptional and didn’t thread a pass wrong even after the transfer rumours had shipped him way out of Merseyside to Juventus, and the situation is the same this time around. But just like the Istanbul dream in 2005 was followed by a feeble fizzle-out in 2007 against the same opposition, I think the whole Alonso drama will end badly now. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Reports doing the rounds this morning suggest that Xabi Alonso wants to quit Liverpool in the summer! I was shocked when I read this. For me personally, Alonso has been our best player this season. There has already been a lot of talk that we will sell him in the summer to Real Madrid so that we can finance the purchase of other players but now the news that he himself wants to quit has caught me off guard. I never saw this one coming, especially since Alonso has always said he wants to stay with the Reds.

They are saying the reason he wants to quit is because he is not happy at Liverpool and he wants to move to a club where he can enjoy his football. Some how I do not buy this story! We only have to wait and hear it come directly from Alonso’s lips that he wants to quit. There is going to be a lot of transfer stories made up this summer, it is all part and parcel of football. I hope this is all untrue and Alonso stays with us for next season.

What do you make of this story?