LFC submit threadbare squad to Premier League
Liverpool have submitted their 25-man squad to the Premier League as required by the new rules that came in force from today – except in Liverpool’s case they only managed to scrape 21 players together for the squad.
The rules only apply to players over 21, so Ngog and Pacheco do not need to be named.
For those players who are over 21, the club can name a maximum of 25 players, of whom a maximum of 17 can be “non-homegrown”.
There’s no requirement to name a minimum number of homegrown players, but any less than 8 means a squad will contain less than its permitted 25 total players.
Liverpool’s transfer policy this summer seems to have been based around the need to cut the wage bill and raise funds to pay the wages of the players that couldn’t be forced out or offloaded.
LFC Squad:
Mascherano’s contract includes a buyout clause of €90m and is worth less financially to the player than it originally would have been. Barça’s vice president Josep Maria Bartomeu said the player had made extra efforts to see the deal done: “He gave up 20% of the initially agreed salary,” explained Bartomeu.
Mascherano played a vital role for Liverpool during his three and a half years at the club. Although he started last season with his mind clearly on other issues he has on the whole been treated as a hero by most supporters since he arrived at Anfield, initially on loan, in 2007.
Mascherano had been looking for a move away from Anfield since last summer, citing his wife’s unhappiness as the main reason for his desire to not just change club but change country.
Later figures suggested demands as ‘low’ as £500m – but were still some way short of what was on offer from the only known bidder for the club.
Now there are doubts about how genuine Martin Broughton was when he said that the club would be sold to the best bidder. It suggested that, contrary to his claims, the current owners were not only able to block the sale of the club but were actively doing so.
Today, the club is still in the wrong hands. Today, the arguments rage about what kind of owner Kenny Huang might have been. Today, we’re talking in the past tense when discussing the man said to be fronting a bid that had the backing of China’s sovereign wealth fund. Huang pulled out of the sales process last night, clearly frustrated at the way he’d been treated.
