Republic of Ireland international defender Phil Babb is the latest to be told he has no future at Liverpool. Clubs have been told that Babb, once the most expensive defender in British soccer history when he signed from Coventry for £3.8 million in 1994, is available.

Babb hasn't figured in any of Liverpool's pre-season friendlies and wasn't taken to Belfast for the weekend Carlsberg Tournament success. He will not figure when Liverpool fly out to Norway on Wednesday to meet Valerenga the following night.

Paul Ince's £1 million move from Liverpool to Middlesbrough is expected to be completed in the next 48 hours.

Liverpool's rebuilding under manager Gerard Houllier has won the backing of Babb's international colleague Steve Staunton, the only player in the squad who has figured in an Anfield title-winning triumph. Staunton, now 30, was in the Liverpool squad that won the championship back in 1990.

Staunton has witnessed Houllier's reconstruction of the Liverpool squad, with seven new foreign stars costing £25 million, and what is becoming a steady flow of departures.

Under Houllier's new regime, Staunton may well only figure as a squad player in the future, but he's impressed by what he's seen happening during the close season.

Staunton said: "How this squad compares with Liverpool teams of the past is far too early to tell. What happened 10 years ago has gone now, football has changed. But the signings who have arrived are settling in and are all good players."

After four successive pre-season friendlies, the only cloud on the horizon for Houllier is the rumpus with physio Mark Leather last week over the treatment of hamstring victim Michael Owen.

The England striker was sent to a German specialist and Leather didn't travel with the party to Ulster, Houllier deciding to take assistant physio Neal Hough with the party. The club have declined to make any comment on whether Leather or Hough will go to Norway.