Opinion: Balotelli and Lovren nowhere near good enough for Liverpool

The transfer window closes in a weeks' time but Neil 'Razor' Ruddock believes Liverpool will not be making any major moves

Two of Neil Ruddock's nine clubs, during his 17-year career as a professional defender, were Southampton and Liverpool. He reckons the Saints did some good business in relieving the Reds of £20m for their Croatian defender, Dejan Lovren. He says, 'You miss Jamie Carragher and Liverpool replaced him with Lovren. I don’t think he is good enough. He was not the answer.' Ruddock feels Liverpool did well, if slightly over-paying, in securing Adam Lallana and has no complaints with the £5m purchase for Rickie Lambert, despite his scant return of goals.  He feels strongly, however, about the lack of return the Reds have, so far, received from £16m striker Mario Balotelli. Ruddock says, 'With Balotelli, we can all agree that he was never going to work. But was that Brendan Rodgers’ buy? I saw him on telly a week before saying he wasn’t buying him and a week later they do. So was it his buy or was it panic buy by the people above [in Liverpool's transfer committee]. Everybody from the outside looking in could tell that it wasn’t going to work.' On the back of some recent, committed performances, Ruddock is of the opinion that Liverpool should have strived harder to keep Steven Gerrard for another season. He says, 'They say [at Liverpool] that Jordan Henderson is going to replace Gerrard but he needs another year... I would definitely replace him with an international quality player and wait for Henderson to come through.' Ruddock adds, 'Henderson is a great player, and he is going to be a great player, but it’s going to be hard for the boy because he’s being compared to Steven Gerrard. He might get stick for that, for not being as good as Steven.' *Ruddock was in Dublin, this week, to highlight the upcoming FA Cup fixtures on the Setanta Sports pack. The weekend’s action includes Manchester United’s trip to Cambridge United, on Friday, the matches between Manchester City and Middlesbrough, and Liverpool and Bolton on Saturday, as well as the game between Brighton and Hove Albion and current FA Cup holders Arsenal on Sunday. The Setanta Sports pack has five channels in total including Setanta Ireland, Setanta Sports 1, BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN.