EUROPA LEAGUE/Liverpool (1) v Benfica (2):RAFAEL BENITEZ has vented his frustration at the lack of investment in Liverpool with a stark warning that he cannot take the team forward without quality signings or meet expectations while "wheeling and dealing" in the transfer market.
Liverpool host Benfica in the quarter-finals of the Europa League tonight but their manager’s pre-match mood was one of irritation at the failure to secure new investment from the private equity firm The Rhone Group.
Rhone’s deadline for an answer to its offer of €125 million for a 40 per cent stake in Liverpool passed on Monday and, although Anfield officials insist the deal has not been withdrawn, Benitez, who has met members of the New York-based company in recent months, claimed its interest was over. It is understood that Tom Hicks and George Gillett, the Liverpool co-owners, who must repay €114 million of debt to the Royal Bank of Scotland before July, continue to value the club higher. Benitez said: “For six months I was really optimistic, especially about this group because they were one of the groups who were there.
“But they are not there now. The Rhone Group is not there. For months I have been waiting for new investors and trying to focus on football and I will try to do the same thing now because that is best for the team and the club.”
Hicks and Gillett met financial lawyers in London this week to discuss options ahead of their next refinancing deadline. For Benitez, however, the impasse casts more uncertainty over his summer spending plans and doubt over Liverpool’s ability to act on Fernando Torres’s insistence that the club requires major new signings.
Benitez, responding to Torres’s assertion that circumstances last summer dictated that “everything got messed up”, added: “The only thing I can say is that I agree with Fernando on a lot of things. It is a pity that after finishing with 86 points last year we couldn’t progress. I agree with him that we need to sign some players.
“Fernando the other day was feeling really tired. He was trying and the other players were trying but while we don’t have the investor it will be difficult to go one step forward. We balanced the books this year and now we need to go forwards on the pitch and create a better situation for new investors.”
The Liverpool manager has spent only what he has raised through player sales in recent transfer windows and believes it is unrealistic to expect title challenges and Champions League football every season while balancing the books.”
He is without a recognised left-back against Benfica. Emiliano Insua is suspended and Fabio Aurelio has an injury. “We need to analyse what will happen in the future because if we continue wheeling and dealing it will be very difficult to stay at the level everyone is expecting.
“I have had some talks myself with possible investors and still we are here and working hard but without confirmation.”
Pepe Reina, meanwhile, has agreed a new six-year contract.
LIVERPOOL (4-2-3-1, probable): Reina; Johnson, Carragher, Kyrgiakos, Agger; Lucas, Mascherano; Kuyt, Gerrard, Benayoun; Torres. Subs: (from) Cavalieri, Ngog, Plessis, El Zhar, Pacheco, Aquilani, Degen.
BENFICA (4-4-1-1, probable): Cesar; Pereira, Luisao, Sidnei, Luiz; Ramires, Garcia, Martins, Di Maria; Aimar; Cardozo. Subs (from): Moreira, Airton, Amorim, Gomes, Menezes, Coentrao, Kardec.
