For those who don't subscribe to The Times, here's a piece from Tony Barrett re: LFC's transfer funds.
Brendan Rodgers: Liverpool don’t have ‘wheelbarrow full of money’
Brendan Rodgers has underlined the scale of the challenge facing him as Liverpool manager after revealing that he has not been presented with “a wheelbarrow full of money” to transform the club’s under-performing squad.
Speaking at a press conference to publicize Liverpool’s forthcoming pre-season tour of North America, Rodgers admitted that he is hoping to make his first signing since taking over as manager later this week with Fabio Borini, the Roma forward, in his sights.
But it was his intimation of the limited spending power he has at his disposal that will inevitably attract most attention, particularly as it appeared to contradict a previous claim from Tom Werner, the club’s chairman, that Liverpool have “the resources to compete with anyone in football.”
The reality is that Fenway Sports Group (FSG), Liverpool’s owners, have long been frustrated by the lack of value that has been gleaned in the transfer market, hence the removal of Damien Comolli as director of football last April.
FSG have made it clear to Rodgers that he has their backing in the transfer market but they have also put a series of checks and balances in place in an attempt to prevent Liverpool from over-paying in the transfer market.
Their determination to make Liverpool operate self-sufficiently and in keeping with the guidelines of Financial Fair Play (FFP) mean Rodgers is not in a position to spend his way to success, with his transfer budget restricted to around £20 million plus the proceeds of any sales.
“I won’t be bringing in many (signings),”the Liverpool manager said. “We don’t have a wheelbarrow full of money. There is not the money that people think there is. There certainly won’t be as many as are being reported.
“For players to be associated with Liverpool is great, but the reality is we’ve only made three or four enquires about players and we hopefully can close out one deal this week, maybe two, and then we’ll add to that over the pre-season.
“I will never speak about targets and possible players. It’s not something I like to do. All I will say is there has been a whole raft of players linked with coming to Liverpool, and there are very, very few of them that are actually real targets for us.”
Liverpool had been expected to enter the transfer market early after the window was opened at the start of this month but Rodgers’ determination to make an assessment of the squad he inherited from Kenny Dalglish has prompted a more cautious approach.
The club are also continuing to put the finishing touches to a new scouting structure which will be headed by Dave Fallows once his move from Manchester City is complete. Having instigated a revamp of their whole player recruitment operation, Liverpool do not want to pre-empt its implementation by making a series of signings.
“Initially, it’s just about assessing the group, the squad and looking at the strengths, which you never know entirely until you come in,” Rodgers confirmed. “The pre-season is a little bit broken this year because of players being away for the championships and recovering.
“But certainly, come the beginning of the season I hope to have the squad that we can take through. Obviously after August, that’s it through until January. It’ll be a case of piecing it together through until then and building a squad that can hopefully compete at the top end of the league. That’s ideally what I want to do. We’ll maybe make three or four tweaks which will help the squad. We want to make the team competitive at the top end again.”
