Rodgers identifies another former Swansea ally to bring to Liverpool

It seems inevitable that Joe Allen will sign for Liverpool at some point before the end of the transfer window, but this will not be the end of Brendan Rodgers’ quest to bring some of his former colleagues from Swansea.

Swansea are digging in their heels in their attempts to keep the Team GB Olympic midfielder and have reportedly already rebuffed an offer of £13.5m and Jonjo Shelvey on loan for a season.

Allen has not stated what he wants yet and the consensus is that if he says that he wants to hook up again with Rodgers, Swansea will be relatively powerless to stand in his way, even though he only signed a new four-year deal in the past season.

But they could hold out for a higher price and will value Allen at least in a similar mould to Jordan Henderson, who Liverpool paid £20m for last summer.

The other issue relates to whether a stipulation was added to the terms of the deal when Liverpool acquired Rodgers from Swansea.

It is believed that Rodgers agreed that he would not raid his former club for at least one season and if this is true, this could throw a cloud over any transfer.

Rodgers’ other target would not cause such a furore as Dorus De Vries is no longer on Swansea’s books after being allowed to leave to join Wolves last season.

De Vries found first-team opportunities tough at Molineux despite their Premier League relegation and so may jump at the chance to team up with Rodgers again as an understudy to Pepe Reina.

After finishing eighth last season under Kenny Dalglish, Rodgers can realistically do nothing but improve on this in the upcoming season.

It is 19/10 that Liverpool finish in the top four and 25/1 that they secure a first ever Premier League title.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.