Sunday Times, could be boll*x, then again maybe not.


LIVERPOOL’S new director of football can expect to work on a summer transfer budget of £20m-£30m with recruitment focused on players under the age of 21. The club’s American owners, unhappy with spending under the joint stewardship of Kenny Dalglish and Damien Comolli, believe limited, targeted investment will re-establish Liverpool in the Champions League.

After aggressively dispensing with Comolli’s services as director of football last week, the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) approached Johan Cruyff to discuss replacements, receiving a recommendation that they appoint Txiki Begiristain, a former Barcelona sporting director. Begiristain, interviewed by Roman Abramovich for a similar position at Chelsea, left Camp Nou in 2010 when Joan Laporta stepped down as president.

Cruyff is understood to have no interest in a full-time appointment at Liverpool. His protégé, Begiristain, had been optimistic of being offered employment at Manchester City if another former Barcelona executive, Ferran Soriano, was made chief executive.

An alternative option for Liverpool is Louis van Gaal, the former Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Holland coach, who has been pushing his own credentials to restructure Liverpool. Begiristain, who won the European Cup as a Barcelona player when Cruyff was head coach, had a mixed record of recruitment at Camp Nou. Although deals that brought in Dani Alves, Yaya Toure and Gerard Pique would prove important, nearly £58m was wasted on Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Henrique, Keirrison, Martin Caceres and Alexander Hleb.

In summer 2009, on Begiristain’s watch, the club failed to sign David Villa, who eventually arrived a year later, and instead replaced the outgoing striker Samuel Eto’o with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, paying Inter Milan more than £41m for the Swede. Ibrahimovic left for AC Milan a year later for less than half that fee.

Though Dalglish guided Liverpool to their first trophy in six seasons by winning the Carling Cup in February, FSG have been unhappy with league displays — and John W Henry and chairman Tom Werner decided to sack Comolli after less than 18 months at the club. Comolli was caught unawares when told on Wednesday he was leaving.

thanks for posting, very good read

This barca guy txiki, seems good and link up with our former barca coaching guys

I truly hope that isn't the case. If the level of spending last year was the only time we were gonna see such money going on new players, it makes the players chosen even more difficult to accept. Last year was a failure of a transfer window, I will find it difficult to forgive Kenny and commoli for their choices if that was the only time we will get to see that kind of expenditure. They possibly wasted our only golden opportunity to really rebuild our squad quickly.

can't go back, but maybe the mistakes now have the owners thinking not again on your nelly,

they will probably be very watchful with cash now.

Well if they are going to be careful does'nt that mean we are going to have to have a manager who is very astute in the transfer market, this means we are well and truly stuffed with our manager and his track record, we are going to need a Wenger like manager for a limited budget way of operating from now on.

Or kenny will have to cut his cloth accordingly

do you think the man is capable because I dont, this is where being out of the game as well of his depth comes into play.

we need to get the right players in, and we need someone to take this important responsibility away from kenny so he can focus on the team.

av never heard of this baca man but misusing 58m doesnt seem to great for my liking

20-30mil will easily do, have to remember we still have dead wood in Aqua, Cole, Poulson, Aurelio on the books and we're looking to offload Maxi, Kuyt and a few youth players on loan.

With that in mind only on Cole and Aqua we'll get 11mil and save near 200k a week in wages, not even factoring in the 50k wages for poulson, 40k for aurelio, and 70-80k for both maxi and kuyt.

In total were looking to save close to 400k a week which is shed loads considering were looking to put a wage cap on the team and that could equate to 8-9 players considering the wages the new players are on.

The top players who cost a bomb in transfer fees will only get 70-80k a week(suarez and carroll) which mean mid calibre players will get max 60k which is the right decision.