Source: Telegraph
Liverpool close in on Sotirios Kyrgiakos signing
The Spaniard has been looking for defensive reinforcements since Sami Hyypia left the club in May, leaving him with just Jamie Carragher, Martin Skrtel and the injury-prone Daniel Agger as senior centre-backs. With only the former fit, Benitez was forced to hand youth team prospect Daniel Ayala his first senior start on Wednesday night under Stoke's aerial bombardment.
Benitez is clearly confident Kyrgiakos, despite his only experience of British football being an unimpressive year-long spell with Rangers, can prevent him being forced to implement such desperate measures in the future.
'He's a good player in the air, strong and aggressive,' he said. 'We were looking for a player with experience. The young players know it is better for them to learn alongside people with more experience."
Kyrgiakos' arrival is likely to signal the end of Benitez's summer transfer spending, despite reports linking him with a £10m move for Real Madrid's Rafael Van der Vaart, unless Liverpool's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, unexpectedly loosen their purse strings.
Benitez has raised around £35m this summer from the sales of Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso, Adam Hammill, Paul Anderson and Sebastian Leto. The purchases of Alberto Aquilani, Glen Johnson and now Kyrgiakos mean that he has broken even in the transfer market this year, despite not, it seems, being allocated a transfer budget not dependent on sales.
Benitez has admitted that offering new long-term deals to Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, as well as the likes of Agger and Dirk Kuyt, has affected his spending power, although the remarkable shift in attitude from a manager who inquired about David Silva and Carlos Tevez as well as Johnson earlier in the summer suggests the refinancing of Hicks's and Gillett's £350m loan from RBS and Wachovia has changed the financial outlook at Anfield.
The whispers and rumours reached their peak on Wednesday as reports swirled that Benitez had walked out of Melwood and Liverpool after an argument over funds in the hours leading up to the Stoke game.
'I stayed here for the fans and the players,' said Benitez afterwards. 'I heard the rumours and they're not true. You always get rumours at big clubs like this.' That, perhaps, is untrue, but while the uncertainty engendered by Hicks and Gillett's troubled reign continues, there will always be rumours at a big club like Liverpool.
