Benitez has faith that his record buy brings value

Jul 6 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

FOOTBALL is one area of life where big-money buys don’t come with guarantees – least of all for goals.

One only has to look at the paltry payback Chelsea got for their £30million indulgence in Andriy Shevchenko last season or, closer to home, the write-off that Djibril Cisse’s Anfield career has become just three years after he himself was paraded as the club’s record signing.

But the inheritor of that honour, Fernando Torres, has the full faith of his buyer. And Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is quick to dismiss claims that he taken a gamble with his £20million outlay.

The Shevchenko example demonstrates a club basing their valuation on reputation rather than the fact that he was pushing 30 and had already looked a fading force in the previous summer’s World Cup.

But Benitez will have no such problems with Torres – even if he joins the long list of imports who have failed to take to the English game.

“It’s a win-win situation,” said Benitez.

“We have signed a 23-year-old striker who is a top-class player. If something goes wrong and we need to do something, then we will have a player of a good age.

“If it goes right, then we have a fantastic player at the club until his best age, the age of 29.

“This is much different to spending big money on a 30-year-old who you will not get your money back on in a year’s time.

“This is a 23-year-old player, a good player, a big name and great potential.

“We have signed a player we want and we have signed a player who wants to come to Liverpool. These two things are really important.”

To make the sort of wholesale changes he called for in the wake of the Champions League final defeat to AC Milan, Benitez knows risk-taking is part of the business.

And he tried it this time last year when, on the back of a record Premiership points haul last year, talk of making a genuine tilt for the title was peppered with a succession of new names tripping off the tongues.

The challenge never materialised, however, as the shortcomings of Mark Gonzalez, Fabio Aurelio, Craig Bellamy and, to a lesser extent, Jermaine Pennant ensured that Dirk Kuyt was the only summer signing to even come close to being branded a success.

This time it’s more a case of staking the majority of the transfer budget on one player, a situation that means Benitez’s own reputation is as much on the line as that of his countryman.

But after losing an alarming amount of ground on the top two last season, he simply has no choice but to take the plunge – straight into the deep end of his American’s owners’ pockets.