Rafa Benitez has revealed he was blocked by buying Barcelona fullback Daniel Alves and Fiorentina striker Stevan Jovetic while in charge of Liverpool. Benitez says he never was granted the funds to keep Liverpool at the top after their 2005 Champions League triumph.

"Daniel Alves was our first option on the right side," the Spaniard told 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."