The papers are full of the news that Daniel Agger, Liverpool’s number 5 centreback, is a target for Spanish side (and well known feather-rufflers) Real Madrid.

Real Vice-President Jose Angel Sanchez is quoted as announcing, in true Madrid fashion:

“What we need is a defender and a striker, and, at the moment, Daniel Agger is on top of our list,” he said.

“We already had plans about buying Agger this summer, along with some other players, but the Robinho situation took so much attention and demanded so many resources from the club that we had to drop the plans about putting a bid in for Agger and other players that we had in mind.

“He is a world-class player and without doubt he would fit into our plans – it is likely we will bid for him in January,”

Agger is a top, top defender. He was brought to Liverpool in the January transfer window of 2006 for a fee in the region of £5.8m, a fair amount for a player of his age and experience. For the first six months of his Liverpool career, Agger was used sparingly as he was slowly introduced into the English way of life and Premier League standard.

In the season 2006/07, Agger made the centre-back position his own but, after tremendous season, was unfortunate to experience that dreaded injury amongst footballers, the broken metatatrsal.

After almost a full year on the sidelines, this season has seen Agger slowly brought back to full fitness. During his extended absence from the side, Rafa signed the immensely scary Martin Skrtel from Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg. Skrtel ousted the older Sami Hyypia from the first eleven and because a regular at the back alongside club legend Jamie Carragher. Now that Agger has found his way back to full fitness, usurping one of Skrtel or Carragher is proving harder than expected. The Reds have started the campaign well, conceding only two goals in the league.

Rumours of Agger’s discontent with sitting on the sidelines have been abundant but Agger has moved to quash any rumours of a fall-out with Benitez.

As I mentioned earlier, Dan, when on form and in full fitness, is a fantastic player. He has all the attributes to be a fantastic player for years to come and, it is important to note, is only 23. Carragher, at thiry years of age, is surely coming to the end of his illustrious Liverpool career. In Srtel and Agger, Liverpool have, in my opinion, two of the finest young central defenders in Europe. Dan just needs a bit of patience and hopefully understands that, in the same way that if he was performing to the level Carra and Skrtel are, no player deserves to be dropped if they are playing well.