Article du Daily Telegraph
Rafael Benitez will have to sell before he can bring £12m Glen Johnson to Anfield
Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez wants Glen Johnson as his sole January reinforcement but will have to trim his squad to finance the deal after Portsmouth placed a £12 million price tag on the England right-back.
By Rory Smith
Last Updated: 8:51PM GMT 03 Jan 2009
The Anfield club have made a tentative enquiry about Johnson's availability and it is believed Benitez has not been put off by Portsmouth's inflated asking price.
But Benitez knows that, thanks to the effects of the global financial crisis biting hard on the club's American owners, he must sell before he can buy.
That is likely to spell the end of the Anfield careers of Jermaine Pennant, a £3.5 million target for Wigan, Hull and Real Madrid, and Andrea Dossena, who has been shunted down the pecking order by the emergence of Emiliano Insua.
Portsmouth will be praying Benitez fails to offload his fringe players, though, with the club already rocked by the departure to the Bernabeu of Lassana Diarra and the imminent loss of Jermain Defoe.
The striker missed the clash with Bristol City with a sudden illness, the prognosis of which would have worsened considerably had he become cup-tied.
Once recovered, Defoe is expected to hold talks with Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp about a return to White Hart Lane, as well as at least one other Premier League club.
Should Johnson join Defoe on the way out of Fratton Park, Tony Adams could face an exodus of the club's other stars, with the likes of Niko Kranjcar and Sylvain Distin likely to consider their futures.
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