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Reds owner: We pushed hard to sign striker

Liverpool let Andy Carroll join West Ham on loan last week © PA Photos

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Liverpool's principal owner John W Henry has released an open letter to fans, in which he insists the club did all they could to bring in a striker to replace Andy Carroll before the transfer window closed.

Read the John W Henry letter in full

Reds boss Brendan Rodgers has admitted that he would not have allowed Carroll to leave if he had known that another forward would not be coming in. He now has only Luis Suarez and Fabio Borini as senior strikers to call upon.

Rodgers says he was "very confident" that Carroll's exit would be compensated for by an arrival - but no-one signed on at Anfield, and so the manager is left contemplating an offer to free agents such as Michael Owen and Emile Heskey, who can join outside the transfer window.

"I am as disappointed as anyone connected with Liverpool Football Club that we were unable to add further to our strike force in this summer transfer window, but that was not through any lack of desire or effort on the part of all of those involved," Henry said on Liverpool's official website.

"They pushed hard in the final days of the transfer window on a number of forward targets and it is unfortunate that on this occasion we were unable to conclude acceptable deals to bring those targets in."

Financial necessity is thought to have heavily influenced the decision to let Carroll go, but Henry is adamant that is not the case - and has launched an impassioned plea for fans to keep faith in the direction he is taking the club.

"The transfer policy was not about cutting costs. It was - and will be in the future - about getting maximum value for what is spent so that we can build quality and depth," he said.

"We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes. It will not happen overnight. It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership. It has been a harsh education, but make no mistake, the club is healthier today than when we took over.

"Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team. Much thought and investment already have gone into developing a self-sustaining pool of youngsters imbued in the club's traditions.

"That ethos is to win. We will invest to succeed. But we will not mortgage the future with risky spending."

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