While there are a number of journalists I like and respect, I find it's best for my peace of mind to not focus too much on transfer speculation in the newspapers.
I'm sure if you combined just a few different reports, you'd conclude that Liverpool are losing the entire first team to various other clubs, and buying 179 players in their place. While there are good journalists, there are those who appear to have been sampling the kind of mushrooms that aren't really advisable to consume.
Obviously there will be truth in some stories; but I think I once saw a stat that only about 10 per cent of transfer gossip tallies with subsequent transfers.
Other stories may be true but for one reason or another don't come to fruition, but you do suspect some journos have an 'invent and submit' button on their keyboards that automatically throws a few random names and prices together in time for the print deadline.
For my sanity, I find it's best to just wait and see who arrives and who leaves.
I don't want any player the manager wants to keep to be sold, and I want him to get his first choice targets, but it's rarely that simple. Stirring the pot is what the media has to do, to hit its own targets. Agents also benefit from creating unrest.
Whatever happens will happen. If anyone genuinely wants to leave Liverpool, then I won't lose any sleep; the club needs those who want to stay and fight for that 19th league title. And I'm sure most do.
Likewise, if anyone Liverpool are trying to sign wants to earn more money elsewhere rather than compete in the Champions League and contest the title, then however gifted they are, they are no loss. I want players like Fernando Torres, who eschew silly money to be part of a top-class team and play for fans who adore him.
I understand the desires of those targets who want regular first-team football, which is rarely guaranteed at a top four club. This summer is vital for a number of internationals, with the World Cup on the horizon – where achievement is the ambition, not money.
But Liverpool need those determined to prove themselves in the year beforehand, even if it means fighting for a place in the team.
Then there's the issue of transfer fees, and what a player is 'worth'.
As each individual is different, there is no set value. It's about how much the selling club need to hold out for, and how much the buying club are prepared to pay. If supposedly overpriced signings lead to success, then they are worth the money. Does Alex Ferguson care that people said Michael Carrick "wasn't an £18m player"?
Of course, a transfer merry-go-round appears to have been started in motion by events in Spain.
Real Madrid, humiliated by Liverpool last season and envious of Barcelona's historic and über-stylish success, have gone into overdrive, spending more than the entire cost of the current Liverpool squad on just two players, and their largesse won't stop there.
The era of the galactico has returned to the Bernabeu, and the repercussions are being felt across Europe.
Chelsea are threatening a return to big spending, having slipped to the third best team in the land; Manchester United have £80m for Ronaldo and AC Milan are flush with £60m for Kaka; and Manchester City are determined to be taken seriously, with more money than anyone else, but hampered by a fairly mediocre recent history and no Champions League football to offer.
As a result, at a time of widespread economic belt-tightening, several clubs appear to be abandoning anything that holds up their metaphorical trousers.
The knock-on effect seems to be general price rises, and an even more frenzied summer of speculation than usual.
The hidden factor, as ever, is that of wages. Liverpool pay very good wages, but have only the fourth highest wage bill. Manchester United and Chelsea pay between £30m and £60m more on wages per season (based on the most recently published financial figures).
If you want a £30m player, you also have to set aside £30m for the wages of his full contract.
The way they are going, Man City, with their apparently bottomless pit of money, will also overtake Liverpool in this area, if they haven't already.
The trump cards that the Reds have are: a sixth-successive season in the Champions League; a manager voted the best around by the readers of newspapers in several major European countries; a side capable of challenging for the Premier League title; and a cachet that, with all due respect to City and even Chelsea, puts the club up there with the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich and Juventus, thanks to serious European success and a massive global fan-base. You can add Anfield and the Kop, too.
Who, then?
Predictably, I am often asked who I think Liverpool should sign. Like most fans I have my favourites: those who look like good players to me.
But this is always the problem with any fan's wishes – it's almost the dreaded 'Director of Football' approach: enforcing your tastes on the manager, telling him (in your mind, or on a forum) what's best for his team.
It is the man in charge of the side who knows best what he wants to add to the system, and so my wish is always that the Liverpool manager gets the players he wants, whether they are ones I happen to appreciate or not.
Because let's face it, not all star names will fit the system, and sometimes the manager and his scouts will have spotted something in a more unsung player.
Look at Dirk Kuyt: I can think of far more vaunted wide-men, and yet he was the sixth top scorer in the entire Premier League last season, and the league's sixth top assist-maker, with not one single winger ahead of him. Given that he doesn't take the corners and free-kicks that help players rack up assists, that's a great contribution, even before considering his work-rate and general team-ethic. He's not flash, but he delivers.
The manager and his scouts will check a player's background, his attitude, his lifestyle. They will be the ones looking into the player's eyes in a negotiation, to find out what motivates him. Bill Shankly always preferred players with less skill if they had more character. A lot has changed in the game, but core attributes, like commitment and temperament, remain crucial. Not tricks on YouTube.
We can all drool over superstars, but it can do more harm than good to bring in a top player who'll disrupt the great team spirit; earning big wages – or rather, failing to 'earn' them. Again, you can't quantify such things, but that's why good managers try to buy strong characters who won't upset the apple cart.
Of course, a manager can also try and find the solution from within the squad. We might think a certain position needs addressing, but he might know who's ready to step up.
Emiliano Insua developed brilliantly last season, and let's not forget Yossi Benayoun's transformation from squad player to one of the league's brightest lights from February onwards.
In the coming season, Ryan Babel might yet be considered for more time in his favoured position behind the main striker – that's something only the staff will know. Then there's David Ngog and Krisztian Nemeth, both of whom could be ready sooner rather than later, and also Lauri Dalla Valle and Daniel Pacheco, who also have bright futures ahead of them.
My point always comes back to the manager knowing best. Not only does he have a better footballing brain than any of us (and if he didn't, we'd be in the role instead), he also has an infinitely greater amount of information relating to his current team, his budding youth prodigies and his potential targets.
By contrast, we're looking through a fog.
It doesn't mean that every signing he makes will work out, or that every promising kid he rates will make the grade. But it does mean he is in a far better position to make what are always going to be judgment calls: who to buy, who to promote to the first team, and when.
Also, Liverpool are getting to the stage now where there's less scope for improvement. Certainly the spine is hard to better; I wouldn't swap these players for anyone. It's hard to find top players prepared to play second fiddle, so maybe an impact sub is better to find than a bigger name.
Above all else, anyone who can improve the Reds' First XI could be worth his weight in gold. You pay whatever it takes to make your team better, within your budget.
Glen Johnson fits the bill of what I've been talking about: someone who can add pace, skill and crossing ability from right-back; doubling up as a winger, which a) allows Kuyt to drift into the box and b) takes advantage of the massive space the Dutchman's movement can open up.
Johnson's also big enough, and quick enough, to do a job at both ends. His defending is certainly underrated, perhaps because he was in a high-profile team when still very inexperienced (and reputations stick), and because, as an overlapping full-back, he will naturally be caught out of position at times; after all, you can't be in two places at once.
All the same, defenders tend to improve under Rafa BenÃtez, and at 24, Johnson has plenty of scope to get even better.
I'm still a big fan of Alvaro Arbeloa (who has also done very well on the left, particularly when man-marking), but Johnson is the perfect overlapping full-back – and if there's one thing Liverpool have lacked in comparison with the other top four teams, it's the ability to get in behind the opposition with very quick marauding defenders who become wingers when in possession.
Players like Evra, Boswinga (early last season), Sagna and Cole have been as crucial to the good results of those teams as some of their more illustrious names. Arbeloa, by contrast, is more of a defender who gets forward, rather than one who naturally excels in the final third.
Again, there are no guarantees that players who improve the team in theory will do so in practice. They could get injured, or homesick, or wilt under the pressure of a massive club; you just hope that good judgement comes with good luck.
In the case of Johnson, he's matured, having been too young when moving to Chelsea, and crucially, is improving rapidly. But his talent has been there for all to see since his West Ham days.
He has plenty of big-game experience, and unlike some players, hasn't wilted when playing for England, all of which suggests he can handle the pressure.
The fact that Chelsea wanted to buy him again for four times what they sold him for, and that other top clubs were interested, shows his worth. Whatever people think he was worth, others were prepared to meet the asking price.
And adding a new dimension to the Reds' play could yet prove priceless.
