Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry has moved to reassure Anfield fans there will be money made available to manager Gerard Houllier to spend this summer.
Houllier's men must win at Chelsea on Sunday to qualify for next season's Champions League.
Parry claimed Liverpool's board will give Houllier the money to reinforce his squad. "We have got a shortlist of players - it is quite a long shortlist at the moment - and it is something we're working on all the time," he said.
"I'm reasonably hopeful that the sort of players we will be bringing in will please the fans and have them on the edge of their seats. We want them to be players who will make a significant improvement".
Liverpool have been linked with a host of players, but the prime targets are believed to be Damien Duff, Steve Finnan, Steed Malbranque, Jean-Alain Boumsong and Djibril Cisse.
If Liverpool fail to win at Stamford Bridge, they will miss out on the £20 million sterling Champions League windfall and be consigned to the UEFA Cup, where even the winners rarely manage to pick up much more than £8 million from their success.
With United raking in the cash at a 68,000-capacity Old Trafford, worldwide commercial enterprises and sponsorships - plus getting an eighth successive crack at the Champions League - Liverpool are falling further behind.
With a ground capacity 24,000 smaller than United's and more than £1 million extra being earned at Old Trafford with every game, that gap would appear to be widening by the match.
Liverpool's new ground proposals are still on the drawing board and even that is for a 55,000-seater arena.
Parry said: "It will be a disappointment and a blow if we are not in the Champions League but it wouldn't be fatal and we would bounce back.
"Failure to qualify for the Champions League isn't going to stop us spending a bit of money so our fans can be reassured on that score".