Interesting speculation. There is a new article posted by Paul Tomkins on another site (don't remember the link off hand), where he says--rightly I think--that no striker is going to play 38 games as in the old days. Therefore the figure that matters is the ratio of goals to minutes played. Using this criterion, Tomkins demonstrates that Fowler was easily the best Liverpool striker last season. In fact, he scored 5 goals from just 9 shots on target! Bellamy also had a good ratio for Blackburn. Crouch and Cisse came some way behind--though Crouch's figures were distorted due to him taking so long to get off the mark. Tomkins' conclusion is that under Rafa 2 or 3 strikers might get 12-15 goals each--and at the same time have a very good goals to minutes played ratio.
As regards Kuyt, there are suggestions that Parry is only prepared to make the funds available if Liverpool make the group stages of the CL (an assured 10 million immediately in the bank!). For this reason, the deal is on hold until after the qualifying round--and might easily fall through if Liverpool fail to reach the group stages (would Kuyt want to join the team anyway if we were out of the CL?)
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