forum.lfc.si

Not content with snapping-up Emre Belezoglu (£3.8m), Lee Clark (free), Tim Krul (undisclosed), Albert Luque (£9.5m), Craig Moore (free), Scott Parker (£6.5m) and Michael Owen (£16m), Newcastle are now trying to sign Liverpool target Nolberto Solano.

Liverpool tried to include Solano in the deal that saw Milan Baros sign for Aston Villa but wouldn't meed David O'Leary's £1.5m valuation. It is claimed that we offered £1m for the Peruvian but simply refused point blank to stump up another £500,000 although newspaper reports today suggested that Solano could still end up at Anfield after all.

Despite selling Milan Baros (£6.5m), El-Hadji Diouf (undisclosed), Alou Diarra (undisclosed) and Antonio Nunez (undisclosed), Liverpool have been pretty tight in the transfer market this summer.

Admittedly the board have financed moves for Peter Crouch (£7m), Mohamed Sissoko (£5m) and Jose Reina (£6m) which is reasonably impressive but considering the Champions League money, prize money and other revenues generated (including the recent Super Cup win), it makes you wonder where the money's gone. We've also qualified for the lucrative Champions League competition this season and are still owed around £4million by Real Madrid for Michael Owen.

The club will argue that they have also brought in other 'prospects' such as Antonio Barragan (undisclosed), Ramon Calliste (free) and Besian Idrizaj (undisclosed) and the more experienced Boudewijn Zenden (free). A proposed move for Mark Gonzalez (loan) collapsed due to the refusal of a work permit.

However supporters will have noticed the club get Igor Biscan, Bruno Cheyrou (loan), El-Hadji Diouf (undisclosed), Stephane Henchoz, Chris Kirkland (loan), Anthony Le Tallec (loan), Jon Otsemobor, Richie Partridge, Mauricio Pellegrino, Vladimir Smicer, Gregory Vignal and John Welsh (loan) all off the club's books saving an absolute fortune in wages.

Then there was talk of the club trying to cash in Djibril Cisse or Fernando Morientes to help finance moves for a winger, centre-back and striker. Unreal. There's obviously some money left in the kitty as the club are still trying to conclude deals but what can Rafa deliver within the next 24 hours?

We spoke to a source close to the accounting side of things at Anfield this evening and he claimed that the club's accounts were still in a complete mess. We were told this last year but you'd have expected the wonga raked in from our run in Europe to have helped a great deal. During our conversation with the said source we basically discussed why the Owen deal had been allowed to happen and why chief executive Rick Parry had teased fans into believing that it could happen.

It seems wrong to criticise the big cheese at Anfield so early into the new campaign but we have some genuine concerns that we're going to sit on for a while to see what develops.

Hopefully the club will satisfy us a little tomorrow, but if they don't, we're going to deem our activity in the market this summer as good but not good enough considering we're the European Champions.

We should be building on our success and buying players that will improve the squad. Not 'has-beens' or 'bench warmers'. Not every player can be an Alonso or a Gerrard but we could still do with another 3 or 4 top class players. So much for the chairman digging deep.