Werner - Reds can buy big

Tom Werner
12 April 2012

Liverpool chairman Tom Werner insists the club's owners are prepared to provide money for big-name signings if it benefits the long-term future of the team.

Since their £300million purchase in October there has been little suggestion from principal owner John Henry and Werner that substantial investment would be available. But Werner cites the pair's ongoing tenure as owners of the Boston Red Sox through New England Sports Ventures as evidence that the Reds will be a transfer market force.

Asked if Liverpool could still secure marquee signings like the £22million spent on Fernando Torres in the summer of 2007 Werner replied: "Yes. Look at our history. The Boston Red Sox have the second-highest wages in baseball and we have been as successful, if not more, than the New York Yankees."

He added: "We are coming from a market that is somewhere like Liverpool, we are not New York or London, and we have been successful in generating revenues which we have ploughed back into an excellent team.

"We will be driven by value but we certainly have the resources to have some targets. We are in this for the long-term and every pound that we make will strengthen the club.

"We do have great resources. We have a very high wage bill and it shouldn't be such that we are 12th in the league right now.

"I don't want to get the wage bill down, I want it to increase and we have the resources to do that - I just think we ought to be performing at a better level than we had been. I expect us to move forward and improve our position.

"But we are not going to be making decisions which do not improve the fortunes of the club long-term. There have been some decisions made which have set the club back and our hope is we will have some announcement to make but there is nothing I can say at the moment."

Werner's comments will come as welcome news to both fans and manager Kenny Dalglish, who is looking to bolster the squad he inherited from Roy Hodgson nearly a fortnight ago.

It is a particularly timely pronouncement considering Ajax coach Frank de Boer has stressed it will take "an absurd amount" for him to part with Liverpool's number-one target Luis Suarez. Valuations of the Uruguay international stretch from £18million to £25million

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