Liverpool on brink of signing

Siberian weather on Merseyside may have forced the postponement of Liverpool's Premier League fixture with Tottenham, but a rare day off remains unlikely for Rafael Benítez, the club's manager.

Benítez confirmed that a deal to sign Maxi Rodríguez, the Atlético Madrid winger, was "very close," with the Argentine international expected to sign an 18-month contract and complete a £1.2 million move to Anfield, as the first of two reinforcements this month, before Liverpool's FA Cup replay with Reading next Wednesday.

Rodríguez bade farewell to his Atlético teammates on Thursday, but the deal was held up by weather-enforced delays in the sale of Andrea Dossena to Napoli, for £4.4 million, and Andriy Voronin to Dynamo Moscow, for £2 million.

Dossena, the Italian left-back, completed his move yesterday, relishing the chance to "play in front of an extraordinary public" in his homeland, while Voronin's departure, according to Benítez, was also "nearly done".

Those two sales have created the funds, and space on the wage chitty, to sign Rodríguez, and Benítez now faces a quandary over the future of Ryan Babel, the Dutch international signed from Ajax for £11.5 million in 2007.

Liverpool have already rejected one bid, of £8 million, from Birmingham at the player's behest and Benítez yesterday said that neither he nor Babel was desperate to engineer a move.

The Spaniard, though, did offer the caveat that he would be happy to keep Babel only if he "did not find any good replacements". It is an apparently innocuous statement, but it is testament to Benítez's determination to keep his squad competitive despite pressure to keep costs at Anfield down.

That the club have made an early approach to Marouane Chamakh, the Bordeaux striker, over a putative free transfer is evidence that, whatever money is found in six months' time, Benítez knows he must spend wisely. The fact that Benítez is planning for the summer, too, is indicative that he believes his long-term future still lies at Anfield.

"I have to plan for the summer," he said. "When I decided to stay I gave my word because I wanted to stay, and so I want to fight until the end. You always have to be ready and know the market. We have some people monitoring every player. We will try to do something now, but we also have to think about the future."

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