Rafa Benitez asks Liverpool fans to 'trust him'

Jul 11 2008
icLiverpool

Rafael Benitez has called for Liverpool fans to "trust him" as he works in the transfer market to improve the Anfield squad.
Liverpool are also toiling to conclude the frustrating, summer-long transfer saga over Gareth Barry's arrival at the club but there is now no chance that the midfielder will be signed in time for the club's first pre-season friendly.
And Benitez said: "We know the situation regarding what we can spend, and we are trying to find solutions if we do not have enough money. The fans must trust us, we are working hard during the summer with a lot of people in different countries working for us."
He added: "And we will still try to sign players that will make us better. But if you do not have too much money, and that is clear, we will have to have a little bit of imagination to progress in the market."
Liverpool face Tranmere in front of a 15,000 sell-out crowd at Prenton Park on Saturday before heading off to their Swiss training camp and three more friendlies while they are there.
Benitez's fear now is that Barry - banned from Aston Villa's training ground - could miss as much as two weeks of vital pre-season training.
That situation could even cause them to doubt further the size of the transfer fee for the England midfielder, and that would underline further Benitez's cash-flow problems.
He said: "Everyone knows what our ideas are and what players we want. We are working hard with different names now.
"We know we will have to sell some players if we want some cash. So we have to do that. Our aim is to bring through young players and that can save us money, money that we can spend on big names.
"We have a fantastic group of young players, in the future they will save us money. At the moment we have to still by big names and the only way to do that is to sell players."