Fagan

NOTW Rafa Benitez refuses to pay £18million KOP TO GIVE UP ON BARRY By CHRIS BASCOMBE LIVERPOOL are ready to abandon their hunt for Aston Villa midfield man Gareth Barry. The Reds refuse to pay the £18million asking price and have now allocated £20m for Spurs striker Robbie Keane — as we exclusively revealed last week. That leaves boss Rafa Benitez with just £5m left to spend. In a further blow to Barry, Benitez is being urged by his board to rethink plans to sell Xabi Alonso, which would be a major U-turn. The Spanish midfield ace had been told he was surplus to requirements and could talk to other clubs. But that was when Benitez was confident of signing Barry, 27. Joint owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett had backed Benitez in his bid for the England ace. Lurch But the Yanks want further talks on the merits of keeping Alonso instead. The former Real Sociedad man was valued at £25m, while Reds will not pay more than £15m for Barry. Benitez still wants to resurrect the deal by selling Alonso but finds himself fighting a losing battle. He is out to raise funds by trying to flog Jermaine Pennant, Andriy Voronin and Yossi Benayoun. But even then he will be urged to sign a winger. Barry has been left in the lurch — but will be boosted by the reception he got after coming on in the Intertoto clash with Odense BK yesterday. Villa boss Martin O’Neill said: “I was delighted with the crowd and there was never any doubt that we all want him to stay. “My own view would be for him to hang around for another year and see if we make the progress he wants. If we don’t, then everybody will wish him well. “We haven’t heard back from Liverpool for a week now so maybe that tells a story.” Meanwhile, Keane is set for his debut against Villarreal on Wednesday or Rangers next weekend. He will undergo a medical within 24 hours.

i dont have channel 5 and i didnt see the starting line up. hence the question. thanks for being so helpful...

has agger featured at all? i assume hes 100% fit now?

fair play to levy, hes absolutely right. i have no doubt both us and the scum have been going behind the clubs back, therefore he has every right to slam us. ferguson is a particularly c**tish person after his hysterics about madird and ronaldo and then coming out today about berbatov anyway, the good news is, we get robbie! the bad news is that standards in the 'sport' of football continue their race to the bottom

agree 100%

if the clubs have agreed terms then all the paperwork still had to be done and faxed through etc... before he can leave the camp. an awful lot of contractual stuff has to be totally finalised and that can take longer than expected

agree, not to mention his attitude is far superior the berbatov's. Keane isn't as temperamental and moody. He'll work his socks off for rafa and us

I think we will definitely sign barry before the window closes. Rafa is playing this very well. If we sit tight, there is no way Randy Lerner is going to let O'Neill hang on to their most valuable asset in terms of market price, only for Barry to be worth half of that next summer or even at xmas. Lerner is not going to let O'Neill lose him millions out of pure stubborness

I have to say I look forward to the mancs coming to play us and the whole anfield chanting 'keano! keano!'

I think there is some element of that to Keanes game. However, in my opinion the marked difference to Owen playing for Liverpool FC and Keane playing for Liverpool FC is that Owen was our out and out striker, we were totally reliant on him for goals. Goal scoring was his raison d'etre if you like. Keane on the other hand is not being signed primarily to score goals. He is being signed because we have a talisman up front called Torres who can bang them in for fun and Keane has the skill, the guile and match cleverness to link up beautifully with a plyer like Torres. Im sure Rafa knows that Torres' 2nd season will be tougher, he'll have more men around him, he'll get a lot more kicks. Someone like Keane will be perfect to exploit the space created by other teams over committing themselves to Torres. IMHO

Former Liverpool star Mohamed Sissoko has revealed Xabi Alonso is more than happy to stay at Anfield this summer. Alonso has been the subject of a transfer saga involving Juventus, who were not prepared to pay the £16 million Liverpool wanted for the Spaniard. Juve turned their attentions to Sevilla’s Christian Poulsen instead, unveiling the midfielder on Sunday. That leaves Alonso somewhat in limbo, with Rafa Benitez clearly wanting to move the player on in order to fund his move for Gareth Barry. Alonso has stated on several occasions that he wants to stay at Liverpool, and Sissoko revealed the former Real Sociedad man has been making the same noises in the private domain. "Yes, I have talked to him," Sissoko told Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport. “He told me he is happy at Liverpool." setanta

im very surprised that juve are the only club being linked with a player of Alonso's calibre. One would have thought that the fact that its public knowledge that he is available, other clubs, particularly spanish ones, would have made a move also. perhaps they hve, but there is no noise from the media in that regard

i have to agree with the poster telling rafa to shave his goatee..

if there s any substance to this rumour, which i doubt there is as losing keane and berbatov would be insane for ramos; but the thought of Robbie Keane joining us makes me giddy with excitement. he would be perfect for us and would be a perfect foil for torres and can lead the line when called upon also. he is an unbelievably skillful player and is also a very intellgient player please let it happen

Bascombe's article is utter nonsense IMO, how the fook would he be privy to what G&H have told Rafa

i think thats harsh on brady. in fsirness, what do you expect, hes arsenal through and through. i wouldnt expect him to be objective. we all love it when phil thompson's partial towards us on tv cause it shows his loyalty to the club. so i dont mind if brady is partial, its in his blood

which is why phil turned around so quickly, as he thought gary was behind him

i liked the "we're all off to Moscow, you're all off to tesco na na na na..."

any chance of getting the stream lads?

plenty according to 5 live

whatever about being concerned about the club being saddled with the debt. if the yanks don;t have strong support for benitez then who can blame them? i gotta tell you, my support for benitez is being very srongly tested. we are just as far away from challenging for a title than we have been since houllier. and i dont think you can blame this on the yanks! i think if the yanks had not been around or had been silent in the media, we would still be in the same position and people would be calling for rafa's head

i agree, i was sying this to my mate tonight. himse;f and torres have the potential to be terrifying. pace frightens the life out of defenders. they both have that in abundance. he would certainly do better than voronin and kuyt, so why not dunno why rafa leaves him out so much, he scores a lot of goals

read the article. porto beat marseille on head to head, so it all cancels out and goes down to goal difference

Late goals means a draw in Marseille can now see Liverpool through