LUKE YOUNG WON'T TAKE LIVERPOOL PAY-CUT
ABOVE: Aston Villa right-back Luke Young refused a transfer to Liverpool that would have cut his pay
LIVERPOOL’S £2.75m bid to land Luke Young has collapsed after he refused to take a £10,000 a week pay cut.
Roy Hodgson’s offer would have cost Aston Villa’s reserve right-back £1.5m. The former England star was also not keen on moving to Merseyside with no guarantee that he would see any more first team action than at Villa Park.
Young made just 14 Premier League starts last season but still has three years of his contract to run. Liverpool’s offer, believed to be in the region of £37,000 a week, made no financial to the 31-year-old who cost Villa £5m from
Middlesbrough in 2008.
But it is not only new Kop boss Hodgson who has been upset by Young’s decision as Villa manager Martin O’Neill also wanted to cut his wage bill.
Out-of-favour stars like Nigel Reo-Coker, Steve Sidwell, Nicky Shorey, Habib Beye and Young are collectively earning around £1m a month, preventing O’Neill from making any new signings.
Young now finds himself in contention for the Guadiana Cup in Portugal this weekend, after travelling with the Villa squad on Wednesday.
But he is believed to be holding out for a move to either Fulham or West Ham, though his wages are understood to be a major problem for both clubs.
Reo-Coker also wants to quit while Sidwell is a £2m target for Fulham – but Villa skipper Stiliyan Petrov has pleaded with the pair to stay.
He said: “They have showed that they’ve got a very good attitude.
“Even when they weren’t playing. Every time when the manager picked them to play they tried their best and he knows that.
“We would love them to stay because they’re good players, but the manager has a different opinion.
“The manager is trying to bring in new faces and to let some people go.
“But even if we stay the way we are, we have still got a team to compete because every player in our team is a good player. Some people may leave and other people will come in.
“It’s hard to see when you’ve played with somebody for three or four years and you’ve gone through a lot of hard work all that time to see them leaving, but that’s the way football goes."
