Liverpool’s Gerrard, Torres, Mascherano top priorities; Hodgson keen on making them stay
Roy Hodgson has told that he is putting his utmost efforts trying to make his star players calm and persuade them to spend the season at Anfield. He has told that his main efforts and energies are right now focused on containing the star players. Hodgson has revealed Liverpool Football Club are trying to ensure their stars stay at Anfield.
Liverpool had a dismissive season of 2009-10 when they finished 7th on the Premier League table at the end. The reason for that was just the usual. The excuses in reality were all those excuses that could be made by a top class club that has had a really bad day, except that in Liverpool’s case it was not a day but a year.
The Reds were near to winning the title last year but their arch enemies, Manchester United got it. Instead the club really showed how powerful they were as they came in second and scored record points at the 2nd position making them the team to score the most points without actually having the title.
An year later and they were the club that was facing unfortunate injuries, out of form players, unexpected draws, defeats by mediocre teams, disappointing decisions by their manager and when all those factors were combined an appallingly dreadful performance was given.
This also damaged their prospect of entering into the UEFA Champions League as the top four now are Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. They are followed by Manchester City at the 5th position and at the 6th is Aston Villa, which is just a point ahead of Liverpool.
The current poor performance of the club has left Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano in doubts to stay at the club. While injured Torres is planning to make a transfer to Barcelona, Manchester City or Chelsea, Mascherano has told that he will be joining his former boss, the previous manager of Liverpool, Rafael Benitez and Inter Milan.
Even Steven Gerrard who has spent all his life at Liverpool is thinking of making a move with bids for him coming for some time by Bernabeu’s manager Jose Mourinho. The Real Madrid manager has been a fan of the star Englsih midfielder for a long time and had tried to lay his hands on him when he was at Chelsea but was unsuccessful.
Hodgson who came in for Rafael Benitez has told that he has full backing from the board and is looking forward to meeting all the players on a personal and one-on-one level. Meanwhile the former Fulham manager who led them on a historic campaign in which they nearly became the Champions at Europa League has told that despite the low funds Liverpool club is managing new players and hopefully before the start of the season they will have a new competitive team for the season.
Hodgson stated in a press conference, “We are working very hard on making certain the players we have at the club who you would call the 'good players' are going to be with us for next season”.
He added to that saying, “The board are working very hard in that area. Some players are a bit disappointed after what happened last season and we want to make sure we get that enchantment back”.
The current situation of Gerrard is that the player is leaning more towards the Anfield side rather than Bernabeu as there has not been any major response from Real Madrid in recent weeks. Hence, there might be a strong possibility that the midfielder will stay with Merseyside.
The other star midfielder at the club Mascherano has had a £25million from Inter Milan and his stay with the Reds seems very unlikely as the player has also stated that he has a good relationship with Benitez and that would give him an advantage at San Siro.
Torres, the world class striker, will be really disappointed as before the World Cup his price was going up to 70 million pounds but now he is worth a bit more than perhaps 40. The reason for that will be his poor performance in the 2010 World Cup and his thigh injury. The player seems to be suffering from massive injuries, one after the other and that makes him extremely inconsistent. Nevertheless Barcelona and Chelsea are still willing to sign him at 40 million pounds.
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