1 Dec 2014

'I can't stay': Bitter £10m star threatens to quit LFC; wants to 'play for a club that wants me'

With his contract expiring next year, Liverpool defender Glen Johnson has given the strongest indication yet that his time at Anfield is coming to an end.

In November, the Daily Mail claimed that:

* Liverpool have offered Johnson a new two-year contract worth £60k a week (£6.2m over two years).

* Johnson is 'reluctant' to accept the reduced offer.

It seems that his reluctance has morphed into fully-fledged bitterness. When asked about his future over the weekend, Johnson took a swipe at Liverpool, and hinted that club is not doing enough to keep him. He barked:

"I want to play for a club that wants me - I am not going to go crawling to anybody. The club know where I am and they know the situation. If I haven't got a contract then I can't stay"

Johnson probably feels emboldened by his winning goal on Saturday, but for me, the key question still remains: why offer Johnson a new deal at all?

* Johnson is - and always has been - a defensive liability, and offers next-to-nothing as an attacking force. His goal against Stoke is his first since December 2012.

* His overall performance has incrementally regressed over the last couple of years, and this season, he's barely making an impact in his primary defensive role. For example, Johnson has completed only 10 successful tackles all season, which is barely one per game. Is that worth £60k a week?

* Johnson is a key part of one of LFC's worst defences in years, not only this season, but last season, too.

* Rodgers signed Manquillo and Moreno over the summer, so Johnson is not even needed at Anfield anymore.

* Roma are reportedly willing to match Johnson's ridiculous £120k a week wages, so why not just let him leave already?

The fact that Rodgers genuinely believes that £10m Johnson is 'outstanding' and 'one of the best full-backs in the world' says it all, really, and seriously calls into question (once again) his judgement on players.

Johnson took one for the team on Saturday, and he deserves credit for scoring a vital winning goal, but that shouldn't change the fact that his time at Liverpool needs to come to an end forthwith.

Author:


70 comments:

  1. Come on Jaimie, Logan already broke this news story!! :)

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  2. Quote:

    The fact that Rodgers genuinely believes that £10m Johnson is 'outstanding' and 'one of the best full-backs in the world' says it all, really, and seriously calls into question (once again) his judgement on players.

    End Quote:


    It's called business mate, or you really think everyone at LFC should say he is awful to improve "not" a valuation.
    Defies belief even writing this!

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  3. This weekend reminds me that I'd be pretty 'Stoked' if GJ left. Took one for the team - then take another one and leave.

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  4. Although the media have reported Johnson was offered a new contract on a much lower deal, Johnson actually commented on this himself over the weekend when he stated something along the lines of, "I heard in the media that Liverpool have offered me a new contract for a lot less. The truth is that at the end of last season there were tentative talks between both parties but it never went any further than that and certainly no contract was offered."
    My own personal view is that Johnson is telling the truth - no contract was offered simply because Liverpool no longer value him to anything like the wages he is on. I believe it's best for Johnson to move on as I don't believe (this weekend past apart) that he brings anything positive to the team.
    That being said, well done to the lad for sticking his head where it hurts and getting us that goal, but I believe it's time for Liverpool and Glen to move on.

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  5. Johnson is a liability and offers nothing defensively to the club. Offensively his backward passes are world class. Can somebody come up with the back passes stats he did against stoke? Get Rid. Pleeeeassse.

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  6. He's still here.


    And if the club is looking to sell him for anything in January, Rodgers surely wouldn't state how much the club doesn't want him and how he's lost a step, how he offers nothing defensively, and how he's regressed offensively as well.

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  7. He is not worth keeping - let him go AND Stevie G should only get £80k a week or else let him go too - best days behind him and has only one year left in him AT BEST - P S We won without him Saturday - Well Done B R FOR SHOWIng some bottle and aving him out

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  8. What has Johnson got to be bitter about? He's been an overpaid, under performing liability for YEARS!! I can't wait to see the back of him. How he's made me miss Arbeloa

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  9. To those who suggest that Rodgers does not have a say in the recruitment process are incorrect. He makes his requirements known, the scouts who go find players matching the criteria and make up a short list. Rodgers studies the players on the shortlist i.e. traveling to watch players in matches from the shortlist, videos etc and then decides who he wants from the short list. He even states in the below quotes that he decides who joins and who does not. Let's say We will not know every player who was on the shortlist this past summer but if Rodgers had for example decided he preferred Lallana compared to Shaqiri who we had an interest in then it was ultimately Rodgers decision to go with Lallana. There was definitely more than one CB on the short list but Rodgers chose Lovren etc etc. Link will be posted in a reply to this post.

    From Liverpool Echo article back in May 2013 by James Pearce

    “There is absolutely no way a player will come in here if I don’t want him,” Rodgers said.

    “I will always be the first person it comes to. That’s not being arrogant, that’s how we operate here and how it works in this country.

    “Abroad it works differently where you have a coach and the club will bring in the players. The coach then works with the players he’s given.

    “A lot has been made of it but the fact is the process that happens here is no different to what happens at other English clubs.

    “We have a number of people, scouting staff and analysts who will look for targets who fit the profile of the players that we want.

    “Then I will sit down with those guys, look at those targets and make a shortlist from that.

    “All that work that goes on is of great help to me. We identify players, gather all the information we possibly can and then if they’re right for what we need it comes down to whether they are affordable and
    available.

    “I know the club will go and do the best it can to get the players we want. But it’s very clear that anyone we sign will be because I want him here.”

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  10. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fc-manager-brendan-rodgers-3572303

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  11. Just like the fact that we won a game last weekend doesn't change that Rodgers has one foot out the door, Johnson's goal doesn't change the fact that we need to give Flanagan a chance to replace him when he's back. Kudos for him to show the balls needed for that goal though.

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  12. Good for you Steve G someone need some bottle to tell them I am ready to say get out BR he is the problem now his pay is for doing nothing at all

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  13. Bring in Nathaniel Clyne! , Andre Wisdom is doing well with West brom too
    no way do we need to give Glen a new contract !

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  14. Yo mate
    Balotelli "categorically was not meant to come
    He wanted Bony , but the committee were not convinced

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  15. Where has Rodgers said he wanted Bony? Rodgers could have said not to Balotelli but went ahead with the transfer anyway. It is not like Balotelli was signed on the last day of the window and there with out a doubt would have been other strikers on the short list.

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  16. I think you may be slightly mistaken. Most people say that it's not that he has no say but just that he has only so much power and that signings can be made by majority.

    "If the right more senior player became available and was the right
    person to contribute – and the manager made that point strongly – we
    would definitely consider it.” Consider it?

    "Your biggest expenditure line can't be
    the whim of any individual."


    I saw another quote the other day that said more but cant find it right now. Will continue to look at some point.

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  17. What did Steve G say exactly?

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  18. So the buck stops with BUCK and the owners will hold Rodgers responsible for his signings and their tragic performances

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  19. No, Rodgers has final say on transfers. He has categorically stated this on several occasions. Here is the proof:

    http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2014/06/debunking-lfc-myths-16-rodgers-final-say-transfers.html

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  20. Did you read Logan's post? Could have saved yourself the time. All that proves is that Rodgers said it. He has said other things that were not true. I will find the quote from Ayre that says otherwise.

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  21. So Rodgers is a liar?


    “There is absolutely no way a player will come in here if I don’t want him,”



    If he is saying such things that are not true the he clearly has no integrity!

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  22. Yes Rodgers is a liar I thought that was accepted fact now? Reina and Mingolet, won't sign Ballotelli, we want only experienced first team players but then signing loads of kids etc. Perhaps it comes down to your own point. Rodgers can't sign players that are not on the short list. Those on the list will come with advice. Younger players will be signed anyway regardless. He will not be checking on every youth player coming in. Did he go and check on Ibe?

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  23. I thought he came on BEFORE we scored but then just lately I do seem to be watching different matches to other posters on here

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  24. Wow sounds like Stevie's had one to many and finally decided to tell the truth rather than praising everyone. Or perhaps Joan has been at the Sherry herself.....:-)

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  25. It could be one of those. I know where I would lay my bet.

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  26. Wrong again.

    “Then I will sit down with those guys, look at those targets and make a shortlist from that.



    Rodgers states in the quote they will sit down, look at the the targets and make a shortlist. It is a combined decision of who goes on the shortlist.

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  27. They will hold the the scouts responsible too as FSG have already got rid of 3 scouts weeks ago. If Rodgers goes the scouts will go with him just like Comolli and soon after Dalglish followed.

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  28. Again I am not taking Rogders word for anything. If I could be bothered I could fill an article of contradictions spouted by the man. So this one issue is where it is all truth? I doubt it. Ayre said he the committee would make the shortlist which makes more sense as they are the ones doing the scouting. The names on the list can only be decided by committee so if Rodgers is out voted the name doesn't go on. He may have final say of those on the list but then if we do not sign the top names we will be using less preferred names. True some of this is reading between the lines and taking the words of Journos such as Tony Barret, Sachin Nakrani, Chris Bascombe etc but I feel between them there is more truth than in Rogders breath.

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  29. Yes but BR was saying these things when we were challenging for the title.


    Now he s beginning to see and fully appreciate the contributions of others to the decision making process. If we fall further in the league he will have merely been following orders.

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  30. Lallana, Lovren and Lambert? The scouts decided these players will join without Rodgers consent?

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  31. Those were his words in May 2013 before the 2013/2014 season started?

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  32. Did I say that? My thoughts were Ballotelli, Sakho, Markovic and Can were either signed by committee or presented as players he should sign. His preference for Lovren and the way he has talked him up would suggest he is a Rodgers player. The other two would not have gotten much game time if not for injuries and Lambert and Lallana have not started a game together. I would only be guessing on all of these but I think the leaps of logic are not too drastic.

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  33. I got drunk by association just by reading the comment. Guess I'll leave work early.

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  34. SO its starting to become clearer and clearer as MUD.
    Gerrard has been offered a new contract which we are led to believe are on much less favourable terms and SHORTER (rightly so given his age).


    Please DON'T LET SENTIMENT GET THE BETTER OF YOU .
    Gerrard has been HANDSOMELY REWARDED BY LFC in terms of what he's been paid .
    Johnson HASN'T BEEN OFFERED A CONTRACT HENCE HIS OBVIOUS ANGER.


    The elephant in the room that the FANS are not ASKING is this:


    WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE TRANSFER AND CONTRACTS FOR PLAYERS?


    WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS DEBACLE?


    ANSWER: IAN AYRE


    This so called TRANSFER COMMITTEE has made Dogs Breakfast of players being purchased.
    NOT ONCE DID WE GET A TOP TARGET.


    What the hell is going on with the SCOUTING?


    Who thought it was a GOOD IDEA to loan out Jordan Ibe and bring in Markovic?


    FSG need to look at ridding the club of Ian Ayre and bringing in a Director of Football and reform the 'transfer committee' so that the Manager and the Director of Football choose who goes and who stays.

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  35. Typical soon as you begin to lose the debate you start using facts to confuse me

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  36. No one wants to say Johnson did well such has been the hatefest he's endured.
    I agree Johnson saved Rogers from some flack believe me

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  37. But surely Rodgers had other options other than Balotelli? We were on the brink of signing Remy. Linked with Bony till the last day of the window. Even linked with Lacazette. Interest in Shaqiri was made known by every well known journalist.


    If Rodgers did not want Sakho then he surely could have blocked the transfer by throwing his toys?

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  38. I had just assumed all along that most of the posters on here were drunk most of the time. If not it's time to really start worryng.......

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  39. Oh I'm feeling sea sick now

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  40. If someone like like Johan Cruyff had to be made DOF at LFC then Rodgers would have no say of which players are going to be signed and Cruyff will decide what style of play/system Rodgers would have to adhere to. Rodgers will be nothing but a coach and sometimes might not even have his teams picked for him. Just go back to when Cruyff was DOF at Barcelona. he ran the show from top to bottom. Not all managers are up for being just a coach. Ask Brendan Rodgers...

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  41. Links mean nothing. We get linked with literally thousands of people. As for targets like Shaqiri that is where the committe and lists become murky. If the is a unanimous decision by all committee including RodGers (as one of the members) but Like Mhkitarian, Sanchez, Shaqiri etc we do not get that target what then happens? Will Rodgers have checked on target two on the list? Target three, four....? Will he have checked on these younger players that we were not even supposed to be signing in the summer according to quotes he himself made? Sakho was bought last minute. We had bought Ilori when we needed another CB and Rodgers said something along the lines of he will be good one day ion the distant future but we still need players for now. He according to some in the media wanted Ashley Williams but no one else at the club did. So we signed Sakho. What kind of toy throwing could he have done? He had not won anything or finished in the top four? He seemed to have binned him first opportunity and signed Lovren (again Logic dictates Lovren was preferred as mentioned above).

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  42. Johnny Starrs said that Ayres had contradicted Rodgers' version recently in the Echo but I have not been able to track it down.

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  43. You've earned it. Is that your only post? Must have been a tough day.

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  44. Hey he's supposed to be bloody working and shouldn't be posting at all. Typical of the youngsters of today .......etc etc

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  45. Terry McDermotts perm5:47 pm, December 01, 2014

    F*** me Jamie, did you just agree with Logan?! :D

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  46. Rogers is a excellent Coach I doubt his credentials as a Manager so I'd be happy with it logan

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  47. BBC are reporting pigs cruising at 5.000 feet

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  48. I agree that it's a good thing if he leaves but to put the status he only has made 10 successful tackles this season is ridiculous. Paulo Maldini averaged 0.5 tackles a game across his career and is considered one of the best defenders ever. He also said "If I have had to make a tackles then I have already made a mistake." Sir Alex Ferguson sold Jaap Stamm for his average tackles a game decreasing thinking he was getting worse but in actual fact he was improving and adjusting his game. SAF also said he was probably his biggest regret by selling him, however I am not saying for one minute Johnson is in there league because he's not and he's probably got a low number of tackles because he's getting beaten at the back.

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  49. It still would have had to have his consent. he could have said forget about signing almost a new starting eleven, I will keep Agger, Ibe, Suso, kelly, Wisdom, Luis Alberto and Aspas as if i am forced to sign any players i do not want then they will not be made use of. Would FSG really go on a spending spree if they knew Rodgers was against most of the signings and waste hundreds of millions of pounds?


    Too far fetched for my liking.

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  50. Not Rodgers though.

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  51. If uou look in the link of the article Jamie posted then you will find that I was in agreement with Jaimie that Rodgers had the final say ;-)

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  52. Then he can walk into another Top Club Job then.
    I'm sure they'll be queueing up for him on current form

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  53. I think Rodgers is taking us all for fools :-)

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  54. I still am of the opinion that Rodgers ego will get the better of him.

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  55. let him go hes crap, one face plant goal and a couple of stitches doesn't excuse him from his consistently dire performances ....60 grand a week he isnt worth 60 quid a week

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  56. You might be right there....but the facts say he's won nothing as LFC manager.
    I've stated in a few thread before that I think he sees this club as a Stepping Stone to greater things and that he's using this as a learning curve.
    I think we will be a very good manager but it wont be at Liverpool he'll make his mistakes here and then learn from it and not do it somewhere else.

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  57. Rodgers is a very good salesman. Whether he is going to improve another team is up for debate. I cannot see it. Definitely not as a manager.

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  58. I really think that Liverpool's offer is a PR stunt. Make an offer that they know GJ will reject.

    GJ needs to go. He is poor defensively, lazy, hesitant in possession, loses possession repeatedly.

    His pathetic abandonment of his defensive duties for Chelsea's should have resulted in him being dropped. Instead he played at left full back in place of Moreno for next game.

    Then GJ was partially at fault for Ludogerets equalizer.

    His goal was "brave" in a certain context, like at amateur 5 a side level. But we are talking about a pro on £120k per week.

    De Rossi is highest paid player in Serie A on £100k. There's no way Roma will grant GJ £120k per week.

    If he gets a new deal we are doomed. I will boycott them if we do

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  59. Can Rodgers keep players that the club want rid of? He seemed to be telling everyone Reina was not off but he went. He said Carrol would not go without a replacement but off he went with no replacement. I would suggest Alberto and Aspas are not his choices either. Alberto barely got a sniff. He clearly lost faith with Agger and didn't much rate Suso and Kelly. So he can threaten to cut his nose off to spite his face but that won't work. My argument is that the committee acts like a DOF. Rodgers is part of the committee but only has the say on final decision rather than the build up decisions that get him there. And if that final decision is Sanchez but the next name down the list is Markovic or someone else young and potentially good what difference does it make, He watches some videos set up by those suggesting it and goes maybe one or two games max. If at all. Whats clear is he can't sign players the rest of the committee don't want otherwise we would have Vorm and Williams in the team.

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  60. If it's not worth doing half arsed it's not worth doing at all.

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  61. First of all,LFC offered good money to GJ for the renewal of his contract,if you take into account that he is over 30 and his performances have been below par during the past 2 years.Secondly,for me the most important thing is the Gerrard case.SG is a true legend and still a synonymous to LFC image worldwide.It will be a real setback if he leaves and not only on football terms.You can not change your flag and rewrite your history.

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  62. Excellent coach .......... ?????????
    Then why hasn't he still been able to sort out our defence after all this time and supposedly getting in the 'right' defenders to fit his philosophy ?

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  63. Another Kick them while their down story. Rubbish journalism. Players get old and people just throw em under a bus. Typical media view. Same thing again and again.

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  64. I agree with you, Jaimie. It was mystifying to read this blog post yesterday, however, from Ladbrokes. [I hope this isn't flouting comment rules: http://news.ladbrokes.com/football/premier-league/reasons-liverpool-mad-ditch-england-man_219861.html]

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  65. Johnson and Skrtel are reminiscent of Mike Tyson. Tyson memorised punch combinations taught to him by his mentor cus d'amato and then like a real life virtual reality game carried out instructions in the ring as cus d'amato shouted out numbers to him. Tyson eventually improved and learned to understand when are where to throw punches and the rest is history. With Srktel and Johnson they still require a Terry, Carra or Kolo type leader in there to hold their hands through matches and make sure they are disciplined and positioned correctly and all at the magic ages of 29 and 30 which is quite shocking.

    At Man Utd the central midfield was always KEANE and another be it Scholes, Butt, veron etc. He was the pivot and could play with anyone. Skrtel and Johnson are not pivots they are 'and another' type players that can only play when a pivotal organiser like Kolo or Tony Adams is in the team. Johnson could be decent again but he requires firm leadership on the pitch to clip him round the ear when he switches off.

    All said and done I wouldn't pay over £60,000 for a former England International who has been well below par in recent years partly down to him and partly down to BR expecting him to manage his own game, because he cant.

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  66. Johnson claims that no contract has been offered. I'm not really sure why he would need to lie about that so I am inclined to believe him. On that regard it's quite right of him to suggest that he's not really wanted by Liverpool. I suspect the club will allow him to run out his contract and just let him go for free. So long as we have at least one target for that position I think that's fine, but otherwise I still don't think we have enough depth in full backs to just discard him.

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  67. That's the problem with the multitude of statistics available these days, you can always find one to back up an argument for or against a player. Not that i'm saying Johnson is good mind, far from it.

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  68. Manquillo, Flanagan, Wisdom. Plenty of cover and i would rather any of those three play before Johnson.

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  69. The fact that this committee has no power to even veto a transfer for any reason means this committee is a waste of time.

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