Leiva welcomes competition

Lucas Leiva has revealed that new signing Joe Allen could help provide some healthy competition for places within the Red's squad.

The midfielder completed a £15million move from Swansea City last week after months of speculation surrounding his future. Lucas, who missed the majority of last season with an ACL injury, has been working hard to get ready for the start of the new campaign. With Allen having to quickly settle in at Liverpool, the Brazilian believes that having more competition in the middle of the park will make the club even better as they look to secure a top four finish. "He is one more player to fight for a place and that can only be good for the squad," said Lucas. "We need more than 11 players to be successful. We can see he is a good player, hopefully he can be comfortable and be a key player for us this season. "We have to go game by game and see what we can achieve, which hopefully will be a Champions League spot. That is what we are looking for. "I think it will be very hard. You can see many clubs competing, like Manchester City and Tottenham. It is not like a few years ago when you only had maybe four teams competing. Now you have to approach every game well and improve every week."