Ex-Liverpool star slams former manager over Barcelona departure

Former Liverpool midfielder Javier Mascherano has lifted the lid on his exit from the club, blaming former managing director Christian Purslow and England boss Roy Hodgson for his 2010 move to Barcelona.

In an interview with The Times, Mascherano pointed to broken promises as the reason for his departure and claimed that he had not spoken about the move before due to his respect for the club’s reputation.

“I didn’t want to say anything at the time because of my respect for Liverpool,” opened Mascherano on his exit from the club.

“Maybe that was a mistake because it allowed other people to say bad things about me. But I do not regret it.”

“Liverpool is a special club and it does not deserve to be treated badly.”

He continued by elaborating on his departure, blaming then-boss Roy Hodgson and managing director Christian Purslow for his exit due to broken promises from the pair.

“The people who were there at the time – the manager [Roy Hodgson] and Purslow – have now gone but they know the truth.”

“When I went back to Liverpool for pre-season I had a lot of meetings with them and they were promising a lot of thing to me but never kept their word.”

“I did not wake up one day and refuse to play. In the game before [Manchester] City we played against Arsenal and I gave everything because I was wearing the Liverpool shirt.

“Why would I do that and risk getting injured when I knew that Barcelona were close to signing me and then refuse to play in another game? That doesn’t make any sense.

“We had been talking about completing the transfer for 20 days because the club also wanted to make it happen, but then they started to make things difficult for me.”

The Argentinian admitted his regret at the way that things worked out for him at the club, but insisted that he did not intend to hurt the club’s fans with his exit.

“The people treated me really well and I would never want to let them down,” he said.

“I wanted to leave in another way, but they didn’t give me the chance to.

“That is the truth. It left me with a bad feeling. My time at the club was over and I needed to move on, but I also needed to leave the club in a good way and that wasn’t allowed to happen.”