EPL News: Hodgson, Torres, Reina give no hope of revival to Liverpool fans- demand time and lowering of expectations this season (Part 3)
Manchester City, Barcelona and Chelsea were top on the list to acquire them but in the end, the Englishman was able to convince the El Nino to stay loyal to the Reds for yet another season.
Another moment of brilliance for Hodgson was when he successfully convinced Gerrard and Carragher to bring in Joe Cole, who had been refused a renewal on his contract with Chelsea, along with Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti to the Merseyside.
Yossi Benayoun went to Chelsea for 5 million pounds while Hodgson acquired Cole for free. This certainly made a laughing stock of the men at Stamford Bridge. Apart from this, Hodgson also managed to sign in Milan Jovanovic, Danny Wilson, Christian Poulsen
and Raul Meirles. With these signings, he certainly found the replacements for Benayoun and Javier Mascherano.
Despite all this, Hodgson himself asked the fans not to expect much from the club this season as his first plan would be to achieve a top 4 position, so that the club can re-enter into the Champions League. Meanwhile, Reina told reporters, "We have to make
sure that people don't think of winning the league or being in the top four already at this moment. It’s going to take a while. We have got to get used to the new players and then the system”.
The former Barcelona and Villareal player added that there were too many dark horses in the race this season so the top 4 position is very hard to guess, "There are many good teams and our target is to be up there but we have to be realistic”. The 28-year-old
maintained, "Is a Champions League spot realistic this season? I don't know. We will find out at the end of the season what we can achieve”.
Reina has capped 266 times for Liverpool and is now considered among the legends of the club. On the financial issue, he elaborated, "We did not spend much money. Although in football, to compete with the others, sometimes it is important to do it”. On the
owner’s issue, he stated, "It's going to be like this for a little while until we sort out the situation”.
While setting the standards for future, he said, "All we believe is that we have to win the next game and game and after game and don't think about the end of the season”. He stated, "We just have to concentrate on the next game and take it from there. April
and May is the time to talk about targets”.
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