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.
I am saddened to hear that we are in financial trouble, this is the last thing we need. Thankfully the season is over as this news would have affected the players. Hicks and Gillet should just give up and sell the club. Even if the get refinancing they will still not have the kind of money we need to be challenging. For us to move forward we need to make some big signings this summer i.e. Silva, Johnson, Tevez etc. But that looks very unlikely as we now hearing reports that we targeting the likes of Distin and Tuncay!!
Come on now, we are really scraping the barel by signing such players!