Liverpool's owners may imagine a younger, hungrier and sleeker squad but, unless up to 10 players leave, the danger is that theirs will be a bloated group containing several with little prospect of first-team football, especially in a season that won't involve European football. There are men such as Milan Jovanovic (reported earnings: £120,000 a week) and Joe Cole (£90,000), who prove that free transfers can be a false economy. There are players who were loaned out, forgotten but not gone, but now returned, such as Emiliano Insua, who at least has shown promise, and Philipp Degen and Nabil El Zhar, who have revealed none. Then there are Roy Hodgson's recruits. Raul Meireles apart, the summer of 2010 was a nadir for Liverpool in the transfer market. Hodgson may not bear sole responsibility for the signings of Cole and, in particular, Jovanovic, but his reunions with Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen were all his own work.
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