Former Liverpool midfielder Jan Molby believes it will be nearly impossible to fill the hole left by the departure of Alonso.

"Liverpool will miss him a lot. You talk about key players and although Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard are the two most important players in the team just behind them is Alonso," he told Radio 5 Live.

"He is the one who directs the tempo of play. That ability to spot a pass to give Gerrard a split second on the ball to do his stuff will be a big loss to Steven.

"In the last 12 months he has been as good as anyone at Anfield but for some reason the manager has decided he wanted to do something else and that Alonso was always going to be available and now he has got his £30million he needs to go and spend wisely."