Benitez 'already signed' a senior player

Three Benitez buys already in the bag

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez has already lined up three new signings for the summer to underline his belief he will remain in charge whoever wins the Anfield power struggle.

Benitez believes he is fireproof whoever triumphs in the ownership battle involving Tom Hicks, George Gillett and Dubaibased investment group DIC.

As the manager prepares to take on Everton in what is virtually a Champions League eliminator at Anfield today, Benitez was unusually candid.

He has money available following a refinancing package agreed by Hicks and Gillett in February. Although Gillett reopened the war of words with his co-owner this week, branding their relationship 'unworkable', Benitez seems to think it will have little impact on his job of building a title-winning team.

'We have agreements with two young players and one senior player who will be a starting XI player. That deal is already done,' said a bullish Benitez. 'We are also making plans for our preseason tour and talking to players here about new contracts.'

Benitez has been strongly linked in Germany with Schalke's Brazilian full-back Rafinha, who is known as 'Little Rafa'. The two younger players are believed to be from South America.

Sami Hyypia and young keeper Dave Martin are in talks about new deals as Liverpool try to prove they will not stagnate because of the impasse between the American co-owners.

Significantly, though, striker Peter Crouch will not discuss a five-year deal until the summer while Jon Arne Riise and Harry Kewell have not been offered anything.

Off-the-field, Hicks, who broke off takeover talks with DIC because of what he saw as smear tactics, thinks Gillett's comments are a crude attempt to force a sale to DIC. While currently committed to paying £28 million a year in interest, Champions League football is almost a financial necessity.


Any idea who the other two could be anyone ?

There are big rumours going round that the other two youngsters are random South Americans, haha.
Hope one of them is Neves or Augusto...that would be awesome....but they wouldn't really be youngter buys tbh...

Bentley is currently sitting 6th in the Premiership assists charts for this season on 9 (the second highest wide player on the list) but if he had a better class of striker on the end of his crosses & through balls that figure would no doubt increase considerably.

He's playing with Mccarthy and Cruz..who are both FAR superior to anything we have apart from Torres up front.
And as the Blackburn guy mentioned...we dont have a targetman in the box really...Torres scores a few headers...but most of our goals dont really come from the wings...becaues our strikers aren't mostly equipped to deal with them.

And correct me if i'm wrong, but didnt Quaresma rob Finnan/Arbeloa (cant remember) and send in their only goal via a cross-assist?

Liverpool without Gerrard? Get your head checked.

Aguero? We got Torres, Aguero wont be let go.

Bentley - U-Borat, you just contradicted your last point there mate, you said we have no target man in the box for Bentley yet recommend Quaresma because he gave an assist with his cross! Dont you think the same scenario will be in place if we bought one or the other?!?!?

2 yougnsters - Well one has to be Rafinha doesnt it? The signs are there. Finnan is out of the first team and no where to be seen so its obvious isnt it? As for the other youngster...no idea. The first team member has got to be a winger, no doubt in my mind it is but who? I'd take it once the season is over we will find out.

^^err not really...i was asking a question because i can't remember how well he did against us...? quaresma, that is. because raRafa said..."He had a bad game at Anfield".

And how is Rafinha a youngster?
he's 23? a certain first teamer? he'd cost at least ~8 million pounds?

23 is young Borat and has plenty to learn in terms of defending, just ask Martin and Danny. He still has roughly 10 years left in the business so in that term he is still very young.

And in terms of Quaresma - the question you asked was in favour of bringing him from what i can understand yet you stated right wingers arent effective.

23 is young Borat and has plenty to learn in terms of defending, just ask Martin and Danny. He still has roughly 10 years left in the business so in that term he is still very young.

And in terms of Quaresma - the question you asked was in favour of bringing him from what I can understand yet you stated right wingers arent effective.

I doubt rafinhas is one of the 2 youngsters you can tell he isnt from the article how could he be bought and not be a first teamer?

I think it's Rafinha who is the senior player that Rafa's talking about. He's not a well known player like David Villa, so the media will ease off. Anyway Schalke04 are still in the Champions League, up to face Barcelona so to reveal that one of their best players is to sign for Liverpool at the end of the season could damage the players Morales in the club.

The two young South American players? Probably a couple of teenagers that we've never heard of before who'll play in the reserves.

I'd be happy with rafinha being the senior player but the only thing that makes me think it isnt him is that Schalke dont want to sell him atall so i cant see us having agreed a deal.

We had been linked to oscar trejo before could be him. Also back when the whole bust up between rafa and the owners happened it as apparently over this:

The Liverpool boss had agreed in principle a deal to bring Kaladze to the club for a fee of around £4million, along with two South American Bosman signings.

could be these two again.

I bloody hope it ain't Kaladze, he's an old boy!

No i didnt mean him but yeah i hope not too. I doubt it is though.

Schalke cant do anything if he wants to leave and im sure he would join us if we went in. Who the heck are the 2 South Americans? Lulinha i hope!!!

Would love to see Rafinha at Anfield, would deffo be a first team player for us and Rafa has got himself a real talent if thats true. As for the 2 younger players, they could possibly be from South America or perhaps Europe. Rafa seems to like players from Hungary for some reason. But they will be players for the future no doubt. Great news to hear though and Rafa has started already, Keep them coming!

Well this senior player is good enough to start for us next season so he must be good enough! It has to be Rafinha, who else? If it was Quaresma or Villa then the media would of revealed this already.

This will be the tip of the iceberg I feel. Rafa will strengthen another area of the squad with a major signing later on, as he did with Torres. If this rumour about Rafinha is true, then it'll be one of a couple of major First XI buys this summer.

On Rafinha, I haven't really seen him play, but I've heard he is very good, and he's also one of the best players on Pro, FIFA and Footie Manager, so he can't be all that bad.

I try to keep my eye on the other european leagues and any time i watch the bundesliga Rafinha always catches my eye. He really is top quality, proper flanker that almost seems like a winger but somehow gets back to defend. Kind of Dani Alves style but without the price tag, he would be a top buy. The two youngsters is anyone's guess, chances are we've never heard of them but they're very good, Rafa has done well in the youth department. For god sake though, can people stop saying "I hope Rafa signs...." and they mention some youngster from footie manager, unless you've seen him play in real life don't start saying they're brilliant

hmmm a possibilty (slight) is resigning barragan, he has a buy back clause of £500,000 so maybe its him that has been signed... again

This will be the tip of the iceberg I feel. Rafa will strengthen another area of the squad with a major signing later on, as he did with Torres. If this rumour about Rafinha is true, then it'll be one of a couple of major First XI buys this summer.

On Rafinha, I haven't really seen him play, but I've heard he is very good, and he's also one of the best players on Pro, FIFA and Footie Manager, so he can't be all that bad.

Rafinha is a top player and would be a good addition, however I don't think he is the "done deal", I think this is more likely to be Gabrielle Heinze because if Taggert hadn't blocked his move he would have been ours last year. In fact , he was so keen to join us that he took the scum to court to try and get the block removed. He is definately a Rafa type player, and I wouldn't be surprised if a deal has been done with Madrid with one of our players going in the opposite direction.

hmmm a possibilty (slight) is resigning barragan, he has a buy back clause of £500,000 so maybe its him that has been signed... again

If he could adapt to playing at Left back and he is good enough we should make use of that its a good deal.

Or he could be our right back if it isnt Rafinha Rafa has bought. Was very surprised when we let him go but good we have the buy back clause because i think he is awesome in the 5 times or so i have watched him play.

Just read in the Croatian papers that the two young players in question are Ivan Rakitic (20) and Rafinha (23) both from Schalke. Rakitic can play wing or the attacking midfield role.

Would love Rafinha to be one of the younger players, who does that leave as the seniorplayer?
Haven't heard or Rakitic, haveyou seen him?

Rakitic, saw him play once in the CL group stages but he was out of this mornings clash with Barca. He is a great prospect from what i have heard but didnt see much to evaluate on him but he seemed a good young player with a promising future.

Yes Have seen plenty of Rakitic is a good young player also being targeted by Juve and Inter. He can play left mid, has great ball skills and can also play in the centre behind the strikers. He scored his first Bundesliga goal against Bayern an absolute cracker.

I cant Youtue it now as i am at work and Youtube is banned.