According to sources Liverpool have turned down a £21 million bid from Barcelona for Javier Mascherano.
Yesterday we published a transcript from Barcelona radio in which the players agent effectively issues a come-and-get-me plea on behalf of Mascherano. It appears this has flushed out Barcelona’s interest and hence a bid was faxed over to Liverpool FC.
However, Liverpool’s response indicated they are not messing about when they insist the team will not be broken up.
The reds are understood to have told Barcelona that the player is valued at £50 million, and now Benitez has even gone as far to say that no other offers will even be looked at.
‘Mascherano has no price.
‘Barcelona could not afford to match his value to Liverpool Football Club. We do not want to sell and Javier is very happy here.
‘I have spoken to Javier two or three times this summer – the last time was only last week – and he was very happy, very positive.’
Benitez is believed to be privately furious with the player’s agent for his interview on the radio station.
‘He (Mascherano) gave me the private number of his agent and, again, the conversation was very positive and was all about football.
‘Walter told me that two clubs with big, big names were asking after Mascherano – and I told him to forget it, that Javier was happy in Liverpool and he was not for sale.
‘So I was surprised to see the agent’s comments today. He has a long contract and any club can forget about bidding for him. They can offer £40m or even £50m, we don’t want to sell.’
It is believed Man City are also tracking both Mascherano and Alonso but if Benitez words follow through then it will take an extra-ordinary bid this summer to capture either of the reds midfielders.
It’s good to know that Rafa is keeping our best players.The problem is clearly that we don’t have the funds to build on what already is a very good squad,
Very interesting that Benitez has refused two offers for our midfield duo totalling more than £40 million.
Much has been written about Rafa’s need to sell to buy, but what we can see here is a clear intention to hold onto the quality we already have. The foundations of an excellent side are already in place, and rather than chopping and changing wildly, we are obviously trying to create not only a tremendously strong side, but a team who know and trust one another well.
This point is further reinforced by several key players signing contract extensions in the past 6 weeks or so.
The foundations are there.