Chelsea & Spurs making our job harder, says Brendan Rodgers

Brendan Rodgers admits the money spent by Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur this summer is making Liverpool’s challenge of breaking into the top four even harder.

The Reds boss has forked out almost £25m on Luis Alberto, Iago Aspas, Simon Mignolet, Kolo Toure and Aly Cissokho in the summer transfer window.

In comparison, Chelsea have spent £32m on new signings, while Andre Villas-Boas has splurged almost £60 on five new recruits ahead of Gareth Bale’s touted move to Real Madrid.

“The challenge is the same and this week hasn’t changed it,” said Rodgers. “What it has done is reinforced the clubs that are already in there.

“Chelsea have won the Champions League and spent millions upon millions, Tottenham could spend up to 90 odd million and they are outside the Champions League.

“For us it is a huge, huge challenge, there’s no doubt about that. But I don’t want to be defeatist. We can’t accept that.

“It’s not that spending money is going to guarantee that (success) – I’ve seen enough clubs make big signings for big, big money and it’s just not happened.

“There’s no doubt quality will cost you money. We just have to try to ensure we can get quality through the door and that will give us a chance for fourth.

“But make no mistake about it, it’s a big, big ask and a big challenge.”