Aquilani and Ngog edge towards exit

Alberto Aquilani and David Ngog are edging nearer an Anfield exit as Kenny Dalglish warned his players they must earn the right for a part in Liverpool's future.

Aquilani is closing on a return to Italy with Fiorentina increasingly confident they can agree a season-long loan for the midfielder.

The Serie A side are hopeful of negotiating personal terms with the player, who made a similar temporary move to Juventus last year having struggled to make an impression at Anfield following his arrival from Roma in August 2009.

Ngog, meanwhile, has emerged as a target for Bolton Wanderers, who will have to thrash out a compromise deal with Liverpool if they are to land the 22-year-old striker.

Liverpool have slapped an price tag of £6million on the Frenchman, and although Bolton manager Owen Coyle is keen on the player, the Trotters must increase their initial offer of £3m.

Ngog has been among the goals during pre-season but his acknowledges his days at Anfield are numbered despite turning down the chance to move to Sunderland last month as part of the deal for Jordan Henderson.

New signings Henderson, Stewart Downing and Alexander Doni all made their debuts in Saturday's friendly at Hull City but could not prevent Liverpool from falling to a dismal 3-0 defeat.

Robert Brady, Robert Koren and Jay Simpson scored the npower Championship side to deliver a significant setback to Liverpool's pre-season preparations.

Dalglish, who used 22 players at the KC Stadium, hinted last week he has to prune his squad before he can continue his summer transfer spending spree.

But the manager was disappointed that so few increased their claims to avoid the axe at the weekend.

"The lads are at various degrees of fitness for the matches," said Dalglish. "Someone like Jordan (Henderson) has only trained for a week, so it's a bit too much to ask him to start the game.

"But we've got a couple of matches in the space of a few days at the end of next week and we'll make sure as many people as we can get more minutes than they did on Saturday.

"If they're going to stake a claim for a first-team place, they've got to earn it. We've given them every opportunity to get themselves fit and try and earn that right to play in the first team, but they'll need to do better than that if they want it."

Liverpool only travelled to Hull on Saturday morning having been put through a rigorous training session at Melwood barely 24 hours earlier.

And Dalglish said: "Obviously we're disappointed at losing the game. It doesn't matter whether it was a pre-season friendly or not, but the fact it is pre-season gives us a wee bit of solace.

"We trained on Saturday as if it was a game. Everybody ran about nine or 10 thousand metres, which is equivalent to what you do in a game, so it's like playing a game and a half in two days.

"We also travelled over in the morning and it's not ideal, but I would have expected a wee bit better than that.

"As I say, it is pre-season and it's to get players fit and get rid of their mistakes - but I certainly think we've got a few mistakes to get rid of after this."

Dalglish added: "In the second half we made a few more chances. I think in the first half we had one shot at goal, which wasn't too compelling to watch. But for us the second half was better.

"We still lost the second half 1-0, but we had three guys making their first appearances in a Liverpool shirt and they will get benefit from that.

"It was an extension of our training sessions this week and starting from now we've got to get ourselves a wee bit more realistic (in terms of fitness)."

Meanwhile, Liverpool have no plans to scrap their friendly in Oslo next week despite the terror attacks that rocked Norway at the weekend.

At least 85 people died when an explosion near government buildings in the capital was followed by a massacre at an island youth camp.

The Anfield outfit are due to play Valerenga in Oslo next Monday, and club officials are confident they will honour the fixture.

An Anfield spokesman said: "At this stage there is nothing to indicate the game will not go ahead."

Liverpool have a huge fanbase in Norway and wore black armbands during Saturday's friendly.

Source: Daily Post

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