sexta-feira, 30 de abril de 2010

Benitez: Liverpool need five signings


(CNN) -- Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has admitted he needs five quality signings to transform his team into contenders for silverware on the domestic and European stage.
The English club were dumped out of the Europa League on Thursday by Atletico Madrid and as a result, will endure their fourth successive season without a trophy.
Liverpool currently sit seventh in the Premier League and look set to miss out on fourth place and Champions League qualification.
Failure to secure a berth in the money-spinning competition will impact the club financially, and they are already heavily in debt according to the latest accounts published by American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
Benitez told reporters: "Someone said we needed four or five players. I would more or less agree with that. That is what we have to do. Liverpool is a massive club. There has been a change in the last two or three years.
"We have had to balance the books and manage in this way. I do not know whether I will have any funds. We will find out in the summer. But the name is there and we have to do our best for it.
"We have to concentrate now on the next two games, try to do our best for next season and be ready. This season has not been good enough".
Benitez refused to discuss his future, as rumors about a possible to switch to Italian club Juventus persist in the press, focusing instead on Liverpool's final two games of the domestic campaign.
"The future is Chelsea. And then Hull,'' he said. "Everything seems to have been against the players this season. It is clear that we had some problems. We had too many injuries and were lacking forward options.
"But the players worked so hard tonight [against Atletico] and I am very proud of them''.
Meanwhile, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says he won't be buying players based on their performances during the World Cup in South Africa.
Wenger told reporters. "In my view, it is dangerous to buy on the back of a World Cup - for one thing, the prices afterwards are always artificial, and for another you have to bear in mind that anyone can have three weeks of glory on a football field. To have ten years of success is quite different".
CNN