Five players who should be shown the Anfield door.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has done pretty well in the transfer market since his arrival at Anfield, manging to both clear out the big-money mistakes of his predecessor Kenny Dalglish (Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing) and replace them with some top young talent on the cheap (Sturridge, Coutinho). Still, with much work to be done for Rodgers as he looks to rebuild this once-dominant and all-conquering giant of both English and European football, there remain a few players at the club who still don’t look like they truly belong there, and who must be moved on when the transfer window opens for business again in January.
Pepe Reina
For a while Pepe Reina looked as good as any goalkeeper in the Premier League, making himself a key player in the Liverpool team since his arrival in 2005 up until around 2009, when his form started to drop somewhat. It is not clear what is behind this transformation, but the Spanish shot-stopper is now something of a liability, and has been making costly errors for the club for several years now, coinciding with their slip down the Premier League table and out of the Champions League places.
Brendan Rodgers has already gone some way to solving the problem, sending Reina out on loan to Napoli for the season and replacing him with Simon Mignolet, who was signed from Sunderland for around £9m. Liverpool will be hoping that Reina can do enough in his time in Serie A to persuade someone to come in for him permanently and take him off their hands. Surprisingly, that could be Barcelona, who are chasing a new goalkeeper and who were linked with the 31-year-old at points in the summer. If he does end up staying, he will surely now be second choice to Mignolet, who has continued his fine form since making the step up to Liverpool.
Jordan Henderson
One of Dalglish’s big-money blunders that Rodgers hasn’t quite managed to eradicate yet is midfielder Jordan Henderson. In fairness, the 23-year-old has shown some signs of improvement recently and, given his relative youth, could still be developed into a better player under the guidance of Rodgers. His inflated price tag of £20m, however, will always hang over his head, and the truth is he has at no point looked close to proving himself to be worth that kind of money, as a fairly limited player with about average ability in most areas.
Henderson could make a decent squad player for now, but in the long run Liverpool would be better off selling him on and bringing in someone who can make more of an improvement to the team.
Joe Allen
One of Rodgers’ poorer signings, the “Welsh Xavi” has truly looked an average player since joining the manager in moving from Swansea to Liverpool. Although the 23-year-old has displayed some good ability on the ball and a decent range of passing, he doesn’t seem to have been able to cope with the step up of playing for a big name club like Liverpool, and after a disappointing first season he no longer seems to be first choice in the Reds’ midfield.
Like Henderson, Allen could be a perfectly acceptable squad player, but for the £15m the club paid for him, one would certainly expect a little more from the player. Liverpool were linked with several midfield playmakers over the summer, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they were willing to let Allen go to help fund a move for one again in January.
Fabio Borini
Another former player of his that Rodgers mistakenly showed his faith in was Fabio Borini, signing him last summer from Roma for around £10.5m. Two goals in 20 appearances for Liverpool tells you all you need to know about this striker who often looks a little lost and unconfident. Although he has done well in the past for Swansea and Roma, he has never truly looked like a world beater who would be playing for a top-end Premier League club, and this has more or less been confirmed as he has been sent out on loan to Sunderland this season.
Perhaps, as with Reina, this is the beginning of the end for Borini at Liverpool, and some reasonable form at Sunderland will help the club attract a buyer for next summer. Rodgers has already brought in additions upfront in Iago Aspas and youngster Luis Alberto, so he seems to be planning for life without the Italian, even if he claims he is only loaning him out to give him a chance to regain his fitness and play regular football.
Luis Suarez
Although it is rarely advisable for a club to sell its best players, Liverpool could do well to get rid of this particular troublemaker in Luis Suarez. While the Uruguayan forward is certainly one of the most naturally talented attacking players in the world, one has to question if he’s really worth the hassle when he’s going to get himself embroiled in on-pitch controversies that see him pick up one lengthy suspension after another. In his short time in England, Suarez has already been found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra and later of biting Branislav Ivanovic during a match at Anfield, along with repeated shows of diving and other forms of cheating.
As well as that, the former Ajax man spent much of this summer angling for a move away from Liverpool; saying first that he wanted to escape the English press, who he claimed had treated him unfairly, only for him then to try and force through a move to Premier League rivals Arsenal. Real Madrid could still be keen to sign him in January, and if the Spanish giants offer something in the region of £50m, it might be best for Liverpool to take the money and run. Daniel Sturridge has started the season in fine form in Suarez’s absence, so it could be argued that they don’t even need him, and they could certainly bring in a quality replacement for the kind of money they’d make from his sale.