Liverpool are on the brink of breaking their transfer record for a defender while insisting that manager Rafael Benitez's job is not up for discussion when chief executive Rick Parry holds talks with the club's American owners later this week.
Benitez is about to spend £6.5 million (€8.8m) on Zenit St Petersburg centre-back Martin Skrtel, the Slovakia international.
The player was due to have a medical yesterday, having arrived on Merseyside on Sunday evening, hours after Liverpool had been held 1-1 at Luton in the FA Cup.
The replay will now be at Anfield next Tuesday, with the added incentive of a potential home fourth round tie against non-league Havant and Waterlooville or Swansea, who must also replay next week after a 1-1 draw in South Wales at the weekend.
Parry was in Russia at the weekend concluding negotiations for Skrtel, and returned to pour cold water on claims that he was flying to the US later in the week for talks with Tom Hicks and George Gillett over Benitez's future.
Liverpool's tie at Kenilworth Road was overshadowed by media speculation that Benitez would be sacked at the end of the season.
Hicks and Gillett have already announced they would be making a decision this week on the design of the revised new stadium plans.
But Parry pointed out yesterday in the Liverpool Echo: "The appointment is a diary engagement to discuss the new stadium plans, it has been in the diary for a long time to discuss the stadium."
Skrtel, who was last in Liverpool in early December to play for Zenit against Everton in the Uefa Cup, is rated as one of the most promising young defenders in Europe.
The deal will mark the end of Benitez's search for a new centre-half that began with the unsuccessful pursuit of Gabriel Heinze and which became increasingly urgent in recent weeks following injuries to Daniel Agger and Sami Hyypia.
Skrtel (23), has 15 caps and joined Zenit in 2004 and has gone on to make more than 100 appearances in the Russian league.
Meanwhile, Fabio Capello formally began his tenure as England manager yesterday with a series of media engagements, meetings and language classes, and declared himself impatient for his first game, against Switzerland next month.
Arriving at FA headquarters at 9.30am, he comfortably completed the traditional first challenge facing any new incumbent of the impossible job, negotiating the short journey from taxi to FA reception through a media scrum.
After formal handshakes, Capello and his first assistant, Franco Baldini, moved upstairs for the official first-day shots.
Capello's first photo-call was strictly business, coming at the start of a meeting with under-21 coach Stuart Pearce, a move his employers hope demonstrates the new manager's willingness to work with the only Englishman likely to be involved at a senior level.
"I want to have a close working relationship with him (Pearce)," Capello said. "The under-21s play an important part in the England team's development."
Capello's first official FA engagement will come on Monday when he leads a delegation to Zagreb to negotiate the 2010 World Cup qualifiers schedule.
Later this week he will visit Arsenal's London Colney training ground and the Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire, England's de facto HQ for home internationals.
