Liverpool halted talks with Tottenham on Sunday night after deciding they could not identify a suitable alternative left back, ending a proposed move for Andy Robertson that had gathered pace this month. Tottenham accelerated their approach after the severity of Ben Davies’s ankle injury became clear, and a deal worth \u00a35 million ($6.8 million) was floated.<\/p>\n
The Times first revealed Liverpool’s U-turn. The club’s decision leaves Robertson to serve out another six months at Anfield, largely from the sidelines. Milos Kerkez has been Arne Slot’s first-choice left back this season, restricting Robertson to just four Premier League starts. His 14 top-flight appearances this term have come with an average of 39 minutes, comfortably the lowest across his eight-and-a-half-year Anfield career.<\/p>\n
The potential move would have given Robertson more minutes ahead of this summer’s World Cup. There is little danger of Scotland\u2019s skipper missing the tournament, but a season on the bench does not naturally serve as the best preparation for the biggest competition of his career. The Daily Mail claim that the experienced defender has “acted with the utmost professionalism throughout,” and reports suggest he never “agitated” for a transfer, merely opening himself to Spurs’ interest.<\/p>\n
That professionalism was on show at Bournemouth. After a chastening 45 minutes on his return, Kerkez was hooked at half time on Saturday evening. Robertson took his teammate’s place and offered a far more measured display against \u00c1lex Jim\u00e9nez than Kerkez had been able to muster, even if the contest ended in defeat.<\/p>\n
Liverpool’s hesitation was linked to their inability to secure a replacement. Kostas Tsimikas was expected to be recalled from his loan at Roma; Roma sporting director Frederic Massara confirmed to DAZN on Sunday that he was “in a dialogue with Liverpool”. The Times report that the Italian outfit were “reluctant” to sanction the exit of their own backup left back.<\/p>\n
Virgil van Dijk left little room for doubt in his assessment of Robertson\u2019s future. “He\u2019s my vice-captain,” the Dutch defender bluntly pointed out. “Robbo is a very important member of our team and I want him to stay but whatever happens, let\u2019s see.” With Giovanni Leoni and Conor Bradley out for the season, Joe Gomez injured and Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 away on compassionate leave, Robertson remains one of the few fit defenders available.<\/p>\n
Rather than resolving his future, the transfer U-turn has delayed it until the summer. Liverpool have shown little sign of handing the soon-to-be-33-year-old a new contract, ushering him towards free agency by July. Tottenham are thought to remain interested; Davies is out of contract in June, potentially opening a slot for Robertson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robertson remained professional after Liverpool halted a reported \u00a35m move to Tottenham this month..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1163],"tags":[220,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-6263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-andy-robertson","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}