14 Aug 2015

You're 'Ridiculous': Angry Molby blasts £65k-a-week Liverpool star and tells him to 'move on' ASAP

Earlier this week, Liverpool outcast Jose Enrique insisted that he wants to 'stay and fight' for a place in the first team, but Reds legend Jan Molby has urged the Spaniard to stop deluding himself and leave Anfield ASAP.

On Wednesday, Enrique admitted that he, Balotelli, and have been 'alienated' by Rodgers, but made it clear that he will not be pushed out of the club.

He told The Guardian:

"I have a year left on my contract and I imagine the club will want to sell, but I still want to stay and fight as I always have. I will not give up"

Reacting to Enrique's comments, Molby slammed the Spaniard for taking such a 'ridiculous' stance, and urged him to start looking for a new club. He told the Liverpool Echo:

"I find it amazing [Enrique] wants to stay there's no chance of playing. The writing is on the wall. Enrique barely played last season and now he’s training away from the first-team squad. Why not just move on?"

There's nothing 'amazing' about it - there's only two reasons players stay when they're not wanted: a firm belief that breaking into the first team is possible, and money, which appears to be one of Enrique's primary motivations for staying:

"I had a good option to return to Spain, but the economy is very different. The only teams that can deal with what is paid in England are Real Madrid and Barcelona, so I would love to stay here.”

At first glance, Enrique appears to be a mercenary, but is that really a fair interpretation?

* Enrique has a contract, so he's perfectly within his rights to see it out. Granted, he has a horrible injury history, but that's part and parcel of football (though if it were down to me, perpetual sicknotes would be docked part of their salary)

* No one forced Liverpool to sign Enrique, and pay him £65k-a-week. Why should he leave and take a massive pay cut just because the Reds want him out?

* Enrique is not trying to fleece anyone, or pull a Sterling and attempt to bleed the club dry. He just wants to play, and his reasons for staying seem to make sense: "The squad has only one pure left-back [Alberto Moreno] and I know that if I stay I’ll play. I want to prove that some are wrong.”

* As Enrique states, the club is light on left-back cover, and if he's 100% fit now, how is it beneficial to marginalise and isolate a player who earns £65k-a-week? Is this the best use of the club's money?

* Additionally, is there any reason to not take Enrique at face value? There's nothing in his history that suggests he's a conniving, money-grabbing mercenary. Perhaps he genuinely wants to fight for his place; is that so far-fetched?!


* Whatever anyone thinks about Enrique's ability, it's totally out of order (IMO) to force him to train alone. Why does he deserve this? The Spaniard is a model professional at Liverpool, and this level of disrespect is unbecoming of a club like LFC.

Borini, Enrique et al are pilloried because they refuse to leave Anfield, but the bottom line is they don't have to leave. If Liverpool are hemorrhaging money on salaries, then it's down to the club, not the player, and it should be resolved by instituting a more prudent approach to transfers and contracts.

If Liverpool aren't getting value for money out of Borini, Enrique, and Balotelli, then ultimately, that's down to Brendan Rodgers, who has steadfastly refused to play them on a consistent basis.

Instead of marginalising these players - and wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds a week on salaries - Rodgers has the option of trying to get them contributing to the first-team set-up, but he's clearly not interested in that.

The manager regularly claims that players are selected on merit, so how does that work with regards to players he's (unfairly) banished to the wilderness?

In my view, Enrique is not a mercenary, he's just another victim of Rodgers' inability to get the best out of the players at his disposal.

Author: Jaimie K


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