By Paul Wilkes.

The signing of Jordan Henderson led Damien Comolli to make these comments regarding Liverpool’s transfer strategy to LFCTV:

“It’s not because a player is English and young that we are going to go for him. We go for a player because he ticks all the boxes. It’s what we need at this time in this window. If a player is English or British or has played in the Premier League we’ll look at that over someone who is abroad but it could be any nationality as long as they tick the boxes and is what we need for this window and going forward.”

Naturally the papers are full of the hottest properties across the British Isles as once again we aim to compete with the very best. Plenty of Ligue 1 talent has also been observed with the names Marveaux, M’Vila, Hazard and Roux cropping up, after all this is the market which Comolli knows best. Despite it being just over a year since Rafa departed we are linked with and generally interested in a range of players that are Spanish or currently ply their trade in La Liga. So why is this ? Well a number of reasons, first of all everyone is – being the World and European Champions it’s clear that the country is not lacking in talent. Add to that the extraordinary performances of Barcelona in recent times that every club seems to see as the ideal model, and the fact that both leagues are ranked the best in the world meaning players want to play in them.

The money in the English game means that once players reach a certain level in Spain if they wish to progress their careers they have two options – stay in La Liga with Barcelona or Real Madrid, or move abroad. With more clubs in England capable of a £30 million+ signings it’s more likely the bigger names will come to our shores than other countries, although there are exceptions.

Also,  to my knowledge, despite some changes a number of the scouting personnel remain the same as to Rafa’s time at the club, so some players will have been watched for a number of years and despite the exodus of Alonso, Arbeloa and Torres there are still a number of key Spaniards in and around the club.

So which players across Spain (or simply from Spain) have we been linked with and which seem to be genuine and likely to end up at Anfield ?

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