Benitez: Liverpool did'nt have cash to sign Alves and Jovetic

The Spaniard, who led Liverpool to Champions League glory in 2005, left the club in the summer of 2010 after a disappointing seventh-placed finish in the Premier League. According to Benitez, though, things could have been very different had he been given the cash to bring in Dani Alves before the right-back's 2008 move to Barcelona. "Daniel Alves was our first option on the right side," the Spaniard explained in an interview with Sports Illustrated. "The problem that we had was that I had to decide to bring Alves as a winger when he was an offensive full-back. "It was a difficult decision as we had money at the time for only just one striker or a winger/full-back. "We signed a striker - the striker was [Dirk] Kuyt, who to be fair has turned out to be a fantastic contributor to the club." Benitez also alleges that he was not given the necessary funds to persuade Fiorentina to part company with Jovetic in 2009. "Jovetic was our target but we didn't have the money," the former Valencia boss claimed. "My idea was to play [Javier] Mascherano, Lucas, [Steven] Gerrard, [Alberto] Aquilani - two of these four players in the middle and Jovetic between the lines, but we didn't have the money." Benitez has been out of the game since parting company with Inter at the tail end of 2010.