LIVERPOOL CRISIS?

A lot of promises have been made by the new owners of Liverpool football club, but so far we have seen little in the way of results, is it now time to start to worry?

Rafa Benitez has already voiced his concerns over the inaction of the clubs new owners Tom Hicks and George Gillet, and to be honest a week ago i already wanted to write this story but i thought for sure we would see some new big name arrivals at Anfield this week, but it now seems even with new owners very little seems to have changed in the way Liverpool Football Club conducts its transfer dealings, we still seem to drag our heels at every given opportunity.

It is no secret that our two major priorities this close season are a striker and two wingers of a higher caliber than we have had in the past. Eto`o and Tevez are names that keep cropping up for the striker role, but because of our time wasting other teams have now joined the hunt for these players with Inter Milan now willing to pay 40 million for Eto`o effectively pricing us out of the race for his signature and now Man Utd seems to be interested in Tevez, but Tevez could still be bought his friendship with Mascherano is a major plus and we also have Bellamy as bait, but this can also show us how much the new owners are willing to invest in Liverpool. There is one more option to solve our striker problem and it is a lot cheaper, If media reports can be believed Newcastle are interested in Bellamy and are very unsure whether Michael Owen wants to stay at St James, so the scenario for Owen to return to Anfield seems to be opening up, it would be close to a straight swap deal with maybe a little money going Newcastles way. But it is not a good deal for Liverpool, Owen is undoubtedly a better player than Bellamy but he is no good to us if he is on the treatment table half the time, we need a striker that will score for us week in week out and because of Owens injury plagued past, we just cant rely on him, but it will be interesting to see if the Americans go for the cheap option.

Trying to sign the wingers has really shown where our go slow approach is just not good enough in the world of todays football, Daniel Alves is now one of the most sought out right sided players in Europe today but he could and should have been at Anfield a long time ago but the most glaring mistake so far in this close seasons dealings has been the handling of the Florent Malouda transfer, this is a player that could have easily been signed within a few days of the start of close season with his media statements which were nearly as good as saying come and get me, but no we waited and waited until Chelsea sorted themselves out and now it has opened up into a two horse race, so now because of our snail`s pace we will have to compete with the Chelsea`s billions.

This transfer season was supposed to be all about catapulting Liverpool into serious title contenders, Man Utd won the League last year so they are the benchmark, now not only do we have to improve to beat the standards they set last season but we now have to contend with the signings that they made in the first few days of the close season, Nani, Anderson and Hargreavs will improve their team and if we are to overcome them we have to sign top class players soon.

Now i know some will say that it is early days and a lot of time is left to sign players, and we have resigned our major players on extended contracts but as time goes on other clubs will become interested in the players that Benitez really wants to sign and we must remember Rafa Benitez is one of the most sought after managers in world football today, so if the new owners don't deliver the big names that he needs to do his job maybe we will lose a lot more than big name signings.