O'Neill set for Lerner money talks

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Lerner has so far backed O'Neill to the hilt with the arrival of Stiliyan Petrov (£8million), Ashley Young (£9.65million) and Shaun Maloney (£1million) plus free transfer Chris Sutton and loan signing Phil Bardsley - but now O'Neill is looking to further improve for the 2007-2008 campaign.

O'Neill said: "We need to strengthen for next season if we want to try and shift our position upwards. Is there a limit on what you can spend? I have not sat down and talked to Mr Lerner about what would be available. But in the near future we will sit down and hopefully have something definitive and pretty clearcut."

He added: "We need a stronger squad. I think we knew that in August time but we were unable to do anything until January. But, with a whole pre-season to look at things and do a little bit better planning, we would be hoping to try and get a better squad.

"I wouldn't be sure about whether we need major surgery. We have a couple of up and coming young players who we really think a lot of.

"There will certainly be something available to try and strengthen. Because Mr Lerner was aware we needed extra people in January, he gave the backing. There was never going to be a clearcut budget in January. He doesn't work like that."

O'Neill has given a strong indication that a proven goalscorer and a powerful defender are amongst his likely targets.

He said: "If you were to have a look at our season as a whole, we've drawn quite a lot of games so we would need to score more goals.

"Our 'goals against' record would suggest we are doing quite okay defensively but I think we would need to be stronger defensively."