It’s ‘who needs to go’ week here in the Football Transfer Tavern and this evening we are concentrating on Liverpool with more names than most clubs being shouted all around the bar all the way from the fruit machine to the snooker tables inside!
The sheer fact of the matter is that too many of the Reds’ players went missing last term, unable to put even half of the fight up that they did a season earlier when the Merseyside club came ever so close to lifting a first Premier League title in its modern format.
Out of Brendan Rodgers’ many summer purchases, it was only really Emre Can and possibly Alberto Moreno who came out of 2014/15 with any credit with Adam Lallana’s form having dipped, Lazar Markovic failing to showcase his flair, Mario Balotelli not scoring goals and Rickie Lambert looking like he won a competition to play for his boyhood side!
With Danny Ings and James Milner already in the bag for next season, Rodgers will have to continue to sign his next incomings very carefully with the fans more sceptical than ever before in his Anfield tenure.
Nevertheless, with Liverpool boasting a bigger squad than most, while you can imagine that Rodgers is in the hunt for a right back, another midfielder and a striker, he’ll also need to let quite a few players go.
With that decision ultimately down to the Northern Irishman, our resident Reds fans are willing to help him out a bit and have listed five Liverpool players who they;d rather not see performing at Anfield next term.
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Click on the image below to reveal the 5 Liverpool stars Reds fans want rid of this summer.
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Fabio Borini
Simply not good enough.
When Brendan Rodgers swooped to sign Fabio Borini back in 2012, he was anything but the finished article.
Having just enjoyed something of a successful spell at Roma, Rodgers took a gamble on Borini and it has proved a gamble that hasn’t paid off.
Liverpool fans have grown used to Rodgers signing younger hungry players with the hopes of turning them into future stars in almost Football Manager style but you feel he has to amend this tactic somewhat.
The early signs are that he is willing to mix youth with experience having already moved to land James Milner so far this summer and that is good news for the Reds who will need their fair share of seasoned pros to get back into the top four.
While what Rodgers is trying to build at Anfield is admirable, you have question marks over what legacy players such as Lazar Markovic and Fabio Borini will ultimately have.
For the latter, he is likely to be given up upon in the coming month or so.
Raheem Sterling
A controversial selection given his obvious ability but at the end of the day, who wants to keep an unhappy player at Anfield?
Liverpool fans will point to the fact that Luis Suarez was forced to remain at Anfield for one more season while almost scooping the Premier League but you feel Sterling’s situation is rather different.
Having endured a PR disaster so far, Sterling’s current relationship with Reds fans is bordering on the unredeemable and Manchester City have already seen a £25 million bid for his services turned down by Liverpool.
Reports from the Liverpool Echo today claim that City have sanctioned a new £40 million bid that will also be turned down suggesting that Liverpool are willing to hold out for as much as they can get for Sterling this summer.
They may yet reject all offers for the England international this summer but given that he has already claimed he has his eyes set on developing away from Anfield, is it wise to keep such a player at Anfield in such an important season next term?
Mario Balotelli
Like Borini, his Italian team-mate Mario Balotelli has also been simply not good enough.
Just one Premier League goal in 15 top flight appearances is simply appalling for a player that not only cost £16 million but previously showed that despite all of his antics and off the field behaviour, actually used to find the net far more regularly.
It hasn’t worked out for Balotelli at Anfield at all so far and when all Liverpool fans can do nowadays is praise the hot-headed Italian for not reacting to scuffles on the pitch instead of goalscoring, you know something has gone wrong.
His agent Mino Raiola has claimed that Balotelli is staying at Anfield and doesn’t has his eyes on going anywhere this summer but this news was met with groans from our resident Liverpool faithful.
At the end of the day, in the race to get back into the top four, Liverpool can’t carry passengers and that was exactly what Balotelli was last term with Reds fans hoping Danny Ings can his the ground running unlike the Italian.
Rickie Lambert
Do you see a pattern starting to emerge?
Like Borini and Balotelli, it simply hasn’t worked out for Rickie Lambert at Anfield either.
While players can of course turn it around, that prospect will be far harder for Lambert who at 33-years-old is in football terms reaching the latter end of his career.
Such a prolific goalscorer prior to his big switch to Anfield albeit at an inferior level, it is clear that Lambert is not up to it in such expectant surroundings as at Liverpool.
Ultimately that is a shame for Reds fans with Liverpool representing Lambert’s boyhood club but he just hasn’t been able to produce the goods when called upon, striking only two goals in 25 Premier League appearances last term.
If Liverpool truly have designs on breaking back into the top four next term, they will need a far bigger goal haul from the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Balotelli, Ings and the returning Divock Origi.
Dejan Lovren
Another whose first season at Anfield was incredibly forgettable.
Dejan Lovren was a selection in pretty much everybody’s worst Premier League XI of the season and much of this was down to the fact that he was brought into Anfield for a whopping £20 million from Southampton.
When the Reds signed the Croatian international, nobody baulked at the fee nearly as much as they did when he started making error after error given that he was a staple part of an impressive Saints defence in 2013/14.
His form has dramatically taken a nosedive however in a classic case of being a big fish in a small pond at Southampton and vice versa at Anfield.
It is unlikely that Brendan Rodgers will be giving up on Lovren so soon with the player still just 25-years-old but the amount of suspect performances he made last term has given a large number of Reds fans reason to claim that they don’t want him around at the club next season.
