Big deals get Gerrard excited

Steven Gerrard is promising boss Rafael Benitez will sign some new “special players” in the transfer window as Liverpool inch their way towards a club record for successive victories without conceding a goal.

Last night’s 2-0 triumph at Sunderland took them to their highest position in the Barclays Premiership in Rafael Benitez’s 18-month reign as Anfield manager.

And as they prepare for Saturday’s game against Wigan, Liverpool have now strung together five successive league wins and seven unbeaten matches in all competitions without conceding a goal.

The club’s all-time record is 10 straight victories without a goal being conceded – and that was in the 1987-88 championship-winning season.

Gerrard struck his 11th goal of the campaign to secure the victory at the Stadium of Light, and clearly relished the future as Benitez strives to build on the best spell under his management.

The England midfielder said: “It’s an open secret that the manager is trying to bring in new players, and January is just around the corner – when there will be some special players joining the club.

“I can’t wait. The boss has said he wants a right sided player, and from my point of view that will allow me to go back into the centre of midfield, and he also wants a new central defender.

“All that is hardly a secret anymore. As for our current form, this run is excellent.

“We didn’t pull up any trees at Sunderland, but we were professional and did the job. Now we aim to keep it going.”

With Djibril Cisse expected to be back in the squad for the Wigan game, having been left behind on Merseyside as Benitez took his squad to Sunderland, sources at Anfield have sought to end suggestions of a rift between manager and player following the French striker’s open display of frustration when he was substituted at Manchester City last weekend.

That incident, and Benitez’s decision to leave Cisse out of the squad on Wednesday, instantly prompted suggestions that the player was on his way out of the club.

Benitez denied any such thing after the victory on Wearside and a Liverpool source said: “Selling Cisse would not make sense in January.

“We are still in the Champions League and where would any club find a replacement for their top scorer who was not cup tied in European competition?

“It would not make sense for anyone to sell a player of such quality in the transfer window with the European Cup still to be contested.”

Gerrard’s “special players” seem likely to include Benfica’s £8million-rated winger Simao Sabrosa, who the Portuguese club accept they will be selling in January and who Liverpool almost signed in the summer.

And it is likely now that Jerzy Dudek will leave Anfield next month, to protect his World Cup place with Poland.

He could move in the opposite direction to Benfica, where their manager Ronald Koeman is a former Feyenoord team mate of the goalkeeper.

Benitez will also sign a centre-back, and it is understood that Spartak Moscow’s Serbian star Nemanja Vidic – who Liverpool have already bid for – has told his advisors he wants to join the European champions rather than Fiorentina.

The problem for the 24 year-old is that he was a long way down the road to agreeing a move to the Italian side before Liverpool’s last-ditch move and a “verbal agreement” had been reached.

But before January’s expected influx of new faces, Liverpool must overcome former player Paul Jewell’s hugely impressive Wigan.

Jewell – who spent two years as an Anfield apprentice between 1982 and 1984 without getting a sniff of first team action – will relish the chance to bring his Wigan team to play a club he has supported all his life.

Benitez may not know too much about Jewell’s Liverpool background – all he will be bothered about is extending the Reds’ current run of success.

He wants them to win two home games – against Wigan and then Middlesbrough on December 10 – before they head off to the World Club Championship in Japan.

If they can do that they will be firmly established in the top four – and Benitez said: “It is improving the confidence of the team because we are keeping so many clean sheets.

“We know we are harder to beat and are gaining respect.

“Now when we beat teams they are saying ’but they are the European champions.’

“That has given us more confidence and we go into games thinking we can win, that is the big difference to last season.”

He added: “It will be fabulous for us to go to Japan with two more league victories under our belts.

“I want to still be unbeaten before we leave, and that also means our Champions League game next week at Chelsea.”