Liverpool’s Big Summer Spend Laid Out

What can Anfield expect to see from Hick’s promised big summer?

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With the January window recently shut one would expect the transfer speculation to have died down almost completely. Strangely though, it seems to be running just as hot (if not hotter) than it was during the window. Rumors abound of Jovanovic, Krasic and Chamakh (even though we appear to have lost the latter) having already pledged to join Liverpool in the summer.

Jovanovic is the only indirectly confirmed success so far, and his signing is interesting for more than one reason.

Firstly, he was apparently sceptical as he wanted assurance that Rafa would still be manager next season. His agent even spoke about how they believed in Rafa’s plan for the club’s future. This leads me to believe that the boss will be staying no matter the outcome of this season. Personally I’m more happy than sad about that.

Secondly, he’s far too high profile a signing to be confined to Torres’ backup. If this was Rafa’s plan that he laid out for Jovanovic and his agent then there is no way that they would have signed on. Clearly this means that Rafa is looking to change his formation as there is no other way to accommodate two strikers (At least when Nando is actually earning his paycheck).

This leads me to the real question: What is Rafa planning to do next season?

The fact that has already signed on a striker is great news as I’m sure every LFC fan has been begging for one since Keane left. However this does leave a conundrum for the boss to work out. How do we play two strikers and three world class midfielders in the same 11? I’ll give my thought on this in a moment.Now, since the transfer speculation is running overtime, I’m going to give a few opinions of my own on what needs strengthening.

Firstly we need another left winger. I have little faith left in Babel (although his Arsenal performance was encouraging) and even if he did play I would prefer it to be somewhere other than left wing. He’s proved quite emphatically that he can’t do that job. So all we have left is Riera and Maxi.

Maxi is in dire need of a preseason as he clearly is struggling even more than Aquilani with the prem’s pace. I don’t doubt his quality though (don’t forget that he scored Atletico’s goal at Anfield last season in the CL group stages) and I’m sure that he will come right. However, even if he does, he should be playing on the right and only filling in on the left when absolutely necessary. Which just leaves Riera.

I really like Riera. A lot. I think that he and Insua complement each other as well as I have seen since Gerrard and Torres. Riera has two problems though: he’s a bit inconsistent and he breaks a lot. So he needs cover quite badly.

In addition to this I feel we need another right back. Now I’m going to get flack for saying this but I’ll say it anyway. Youth will always be a gamble and I don’t believe that they should be the sole backup to a position. Johnson seems to be quite fragile as well (weirdly) so I think he needs cover brought in.

Carra does that job at the moment, but I would prefer him in the heart of our defense as would most fans, I’m sure. Degen scares me. I joked after the Arsenal game that he had fulfilled his one outrageous tackle per match quota, but it seems to be true. If he didn’t lose his head so often and actually remembered that a fullbacks job is to defend first and support second then I would say he’s the one. Neither are likely though, so someone else will have to be found.

Let me just clarify my youth statement. I am not saying that the youngsters should not be given a chance. I am saying that having them as our sole backup may mean that they may have to face (in the worst case) Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal three games in a row (which is not dissimilar to Arsenal’s recent run). If the kid made a mistake in the first of these games (like Darby’s against Lyon) then they could easily buckle under the pressure and do the same against Man U. The press would then have a field day and leave the poor lad a nervous wreck before the Arsenal game, and since he’s the only cover he will HAVE to play.

Anyway, those are the two positions that I think we need to fill (striker used to be one as well, but we’ve got that covered now). So how are we going to fit all this talent onto the field? Well, the most obvious solution would be a 4-4-2 with Gerrard and Masch in the middle and T and Jovanovic up front. But then we have Aquilani wasting on the bench only getting time when G or T break down. That’s not good enough for me.

I would propose a diamond formation with Gerrard on the right, Maxi (or a real left winger) on the left, Masch behind and Aquilani up front with JT getting the goals. If Torres gets an owie then we can revert to 4-2-3-1 if need be by bringing on Riera or Maxi. If Gerrard has a moment then we can go to 4-4-2 by moving Maxi to the right and bringing on Riera for the left. Seems the most likely to me… What are your thoughts?

Now I would like to look at a different aspect of transfers, namely how much money we can expect to have available.

Our dear friend and owner Hicks said not too long ago that the summer would be a big one for our club. Quite what he meant by this is up for debate. Big as in lots of money spent or big as in lots of activity (which isn’t necessarily the same thing)? He made no promises as to any additional funds being available and I would be dumbfounded if there were actually.

Chrisitan Purslow recently had a meeting with the Spirit of Shankly (SoS) supporters group to discuss a few aspect of the club’s finances. Many items were covered and I would recommend every Liverpool fan to read through the minutes of the meeting. Most interesting, in my opinion, was an intimate glimpse into how our transfer kitty is assembled.

Purslow said that all money related to transfers is kept in a separate account to the rest of the finances and the money in that account was available only for squad related purposes. These include paying wages and signing on fees as well as the transfer fees used to buy out existing contracts of new players. What goes into the account is all money received from player sales as well as any profit that the club makes over the financial year (or would do if it wasn’t paying of our debt). Purslow noted that the owners also added money of their own to this account “for the first few years” in Purslow’s own words. Also Purslow had received no indication that any additional money would be forthcoming and stated that our owners had limited money and could not borrow more.

What this means is for one, Hicks was being deliberately misleading. His claim that the summer would be big gave the impression that the owners were to thank for it. Where as, in truth, if anyone is to thank then it would be Rafa. Why do I say this? Well, all of our harping about our net spend in the years since the yanks arrived was not entirely accurate. We did not take into account the rising and falling of our squad’s wages and the signing on fees required to resign Gerrard, Torres, Kuyt, Agger, Benayoun, Darby, Spearing, etc etc etc.

So instead of a big spending summer, we only broke even in players in and out but kept the backbone of our squad for many years to come.

However the only thing that made all of this possible was, unfortunately, the sale of Keane the previous January. Then Rafa bartered his way into buying Johnson (remember that a large chunk of his fee was made up from outstanding Crouch money). Then when Xabi left we signed Aquilani on an installment package. So what happened to all of Xabi’s money?

Well I can only assume that it’s still there. Purslow claimed that Rafa had funds to spend over January but preferred to hold onto it and nab better targets in the summer. I assume also that this is why our summer is going to be a big one. Rafa’s been a busy boy trying to nab some cheap signings while he can, but I expect to see some real activity in June. With no thanks to the owners even though they will probably try to claim it.

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