Aston Villa winger Ashley Young is top of Roy Hodgson’s wishlist as he tries to add British players to his Liverpool team.
Hodgson, who has strongly denied that he is not a big enough name to persuade Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to stay, will try to find out this week if Villa manager Martin O’Neill is willing to let Young leave.
Liverpool have sold Yossi Benayoun to Chelsea for £6.5m and replaced him with 29-year-old Serbia World Cup player Milan Jovanovic, a free agent. Hodgson could also sell Javier Mascherano to Barcelona for £25m and bring in Brazil’s Gilberto Silva at a fraction of the price.
He said: ‘We would be foolish not to be aware of the importance of homegrown players with the way UEFA and Premier League rules are going. Otherwise we’re going to struggle to get our squad numbers together.
‘I think the club have been trying to do that already with younger players like Jonjo Shelvey and Raheem Sterling but it takes time for them to come through so we might have to go into the transfer market.’
Hodgson is anxious to sort out the futures of Torres and Gerrard but if the Liverpool and England skipper decides to join Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, Liverpool want Holland forward Rafael van der Vaart in part-exchange.
The manager turned down the chance to sign Jovanovic for a fee when he was at Fulham but sees him as a good capture on a free transfer.
He said: ‘We have furnished the World Cup with more players than any other team but looking at the squad at Melwood, it did seem very small in terms of seniors.’
Source: DailyMail
Name: Paul Konchesky
Name: Raul Meireles
Name: Brad Jones
Name: Christian Poulsen
Name: Danny Wilson
Name: Joe Cole
Name: Milan Jovanovic
Name: Jonjo-Shelvey
Name: Damien Plessis
Name: Alex Kacaniklic
Name: Lauri Dalla Valle
Name: Emiliano Insua
Name: Javier Mascherano
Name: Alberto Aquilani
Name: Diego Cavalieri
Name: Philipp Degen
Name: Ray Putterill
Name: David Martin
Name: Albert Riera
Name: Yossi Benayoun
Name: Robbie Threlfall
Name: Mikel San Jose