Ah, how nice it is this January to be able to sit back and watch other clubs scrambling around for players. We Liverpool fans have the luxury this year of being able to stretch out, safe and comfortable in the knowledge that the silly rumours spread around by various journos to sell papers are just that. Silly rumours.

Peter Crouch to Newcastle? Ha! Xabi Alonso to Real? I think not! Jose Reina back to sunny Spain? Not a chance.

The simple truth is that we now have a squad with the potential to do great things. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Rafa had to rebuild an unbalanced squad on limited resources, but now it has been completed 2006 should be the last year in which we are forced to bring in a plethora of new faces.

Now don’t get me wrong, every side needs fresh talent to come in to stay at the top; but as we have seen this year, too many can bring about as much of a negative effect as a positive. Finally, we are where we have needed to be for a long time; in a position to bring in the odd one or two higher profile (and cost) players to add a new element to the side.

A quick glance at this year’s squad shows we’ve a top-class set of strikers with height, strength, pace and experience, one of the best midfields in the country, two wingers who are young, have bags of potential and are finally starting to show what they can do, a couple of flair players, a rock solid defence and a string of top-notch keepers.

Sure we could do with some cover at right back, and maybe a new holding midfielder to replace Boudewijn Zenden at some point but there’s not a lot I’d change there. All we need now is to let the squad grow (in experience), let relationships continue to develop and see where we end up.