By Anna Sneider
While a striker and goalkeeper remain Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers priority, something needs to be done with Liverpool’s defence which once again succumbed to a set piece goal at the weekend, and while the team looked sharper against Arsenal they are still far from being the finished product and are miles behind being able to compete with Manchester City or Chelsea.
We have not heard Rodgers speaking about making any January signings and paying £5.5 million to Lille for a player you get for free in the summer seems rather excessive with the French side confirming that Liverpool have not approached them over Divock Origi as of yet.
Lille director Jean-Michel Vandamme said: ‘Origi to Liverpool? We haven’t received any proposal, but they could offer £5.5m in January.’
After having spent over a 100 million in the summer it would be difficult to go to the American owners and say I need more money if we are to get back into the Champions League next season with Rodgers most likely to hear that if he needs money sell Balotelli, Borini and Lovren.
This means that the Liverpool boss could be forced to make loan deals to see out the season before any transfers can happen in the summer.
One such deal Liverpool could do is to try and sell Borini to Sunderland and use the money to tempt Stoke to sell England U-21 goalkeeper Jack Butland who is currently on loan at Derby County.
Our thoughts on Simon Mignolet getting back his starting job are the same as Everton keeper Tim Howard when he wrote in his auto biography: “It is a big confidence position. Not only for the goalkeeper to have confidence, but when you take the goalkeeper out of the team and you bring him back, does the team have confidence? Do the fans have confidence?
“It is a hard road back when you get taken out of the team and sometimes there is no way back. It is unfortunate in goalkeeping that is how it is.
“You cannot come in and play the last 20 or 30 minutes and win a few tackles, it is all and nothing with goalkeeping.”
So have we seen the last of Simon Mignolet? Only time will tell, but Brad Jones is certainly not the keeper Liverpool wants to see as their number one.
