Forget The Price, Benayoun Is A Good Buy for Liverpool

The internet is a wonderful creation: how else would you have ever ended up reading my wise words? But, nevertheless, there are times when I wish no one had ever thought of it. And this is one of those them.

For there is nothing more depressing these days than chancing upon a Liverpool forum. Should you have the misfortune to do so you would find post after post complaining about the lack of transfer activity and how this has already killed off Liverpool’s hopes for next season.

Given this situation, you would have thought that the news of a bid for West Ham’s Israeli midfielder Yossi Benayoun would have brought some relief. Instead it has done the opposite. For, the masses seem to have decided, Benayoun is not good enough. Or, rather, he doesn’t cost enough because that is apparently the way you judge players these days.

It all stems from Rafael Benitez’s comments in the aftermath of the Champions League final defeat, where he urged the club to act fast in order to secure the players that he had in mind rather then end up with the second or third choices later on during the summer. That he had already identified two players costing in the region of £10 million sparked frenetic speculation as to who these two must be. No one costing less will do.

Which is why the Benayoun transfer rumours have been met with skepticism at best. It is symptomatic of a generation of fans who value players by hype, rating in football management games and youtube clips.

None of those needs to be checked to establish that Benayoun is an excellent player: that is something for which you have to see him play. Surprisingly few seem to remember last year’s the FA Cup final when Benayoun literally ran rings round the Livepool defence.

His flair and technique would come in pretty useful in a Liverpool squad that last season lacked a creative outlet once Luis Garcia was ruled out injured. He might not fall in the £10 million bracket that Benitez mentioned last May – probably because his contract is running out - but he remains a player who the Spanish manager values very highly since his time in Spain. And that should be all that really matters.

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Forget The Price, Benayoun Is A Good Buy for Liverpool

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