Will these two Liverpool stars really get a shot in the first team next season?

On my daily trawl through Liverpool’s official website, I came across Liverpool’s First Team squad list. New signing Alexander Doni has been given the number 32 shirt but by far the most interesting ones are for Alberto Aquilani and Emiliano Insua. Aquilani has been given the number 98 and Insua the number 99 shirt.

You could read this development in one of two ways. The first being that as they have been given squad numbers, unlike Philipp Degen, Nabil El Zhar and Milan Jovanovic, they are part of Kenny Dalglish’s first team plans. Why otherwise give them a squad number at all if they weren’t going to play some part in next season’s campaign?

The other way of looking at it though is that the Reds are uncertain where the future of both player’s lie. Although the numbers 98 and 99 can be used as squad numbers, they are most commonly used outside of England. The Premier League normally use shirt numbers between 1 and 49, with very few first team players use 50 to 99. For this reason it could be assumed they have been given temporary squad numbers just in case they don’t move onto to pasture’s new.

Certainly you could read too much into such things and there hasn’t really been any indication from the club either way about their futures at the club. Both Aquilani and Insua have been linked with moves away but no concrete offers for the players have been made in this transfer window as of yet.

Aquilani’s agent Franco Zavaglia seems to suggest that his client is one day he is leaving and the next he is staying, and Aqua’s future seems to be more up in the air than ever, with Fiorentina seemingly interested in the player to replace outgoing playmaker Riccardo Montolivo but not prepared to put the money in place for either a transfer or Aqua’s sizeable wages.

In Insua’s case, things have been very quiet since he returned from Galatasaray on loan. The Argentine has expressed on twitter his desire to stay on Merseyside and impressed in his performance against the Malaysian XI last weekend, but if the Reds do purchase another left back, his game time maybe limited which would suggest a move would be a greater possibility than not.

Manager Kenny Dalglish has stated that players will need to leave this summer:

“We’re delighted with the work we’ve done. Whether there’s more remains to be seen and depends on players going out.”

Yet he hasn’t made public assurances about any player’s future at the club, leaving everyone guessing as to who he rates and who he wants to get rid of. He would surely have been impressed by Aquilani’s performances in pre-season, and First Team Coach Steve Clarke has certainly stated publicly he rates the Italian, but it looks as if we’ve got a month and a half to wait to know what’s in the mind of King Kenny.

Written by David Tully for Live4liverpool.com. Follow us on twitter @live4Liverpool or like us on Facebook

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