Bobby Duncan has broken his Twitter silence since his agent released a statement slamming Liverpool, only to delete the message almost instantly.
The 18-year-old forward has been at the centre of a spat between his agent Saif Rubie and his employers Liverpool after he was denied a loan move away from the club.
The England U19 international was involved in Jurgen Klopp’s side during pre-season and has twice appeared for the Liverpool U23s so far this season as a substitute, but has not played for 10 days.
Earlier today, he tweeted, ‘I just want to play football!’, but the message was only live for a couple of minutes before it was deleted.
Duncan is a cousin of Reds legend Steven Gerrard and first made his name as an England U16 international who became the first Three Lions player at any level to score a hat-trick against Brazil.
But he was thrust into the limelight for less positive reasons earlier this week when his agent posted a statement explaining that the relationship between club and player had broken down.
‘It was recognised that Bobby wasn’t happy at Liverpool for different reasons and Alex [Inglethorpe] invited us to bring offers to the club for the exit of Bobby Duncan,’ the statement said.
‘For a player with zero first team experience, no clubs were prepared to pay an outright reasonable fee for a player they got for £200,000 last summer.
‘With that in mind we have been able to find clubs that were ready to take Bobby on a season-long loan with a option to buy for amounts of £1.5million upwards which is a great return for the club on a player who will never play for the Liverpool first team and who doesn’t want to be there.’
It also said: ‘The real reason Bobby missed the Under-23 game [against Southampton, which was reported as an indication he would be leaving the club] on Monday is because he has suffered some deep mental health issues with all the stress the club has put him under.
‘Stress of being told he can leave but then going out of their way to force him to stay against his will.
‘Not only is he on a very small salary but he also has one season left on his contract after this one and Liverpool have flatly said he will not get a new one.’
Rubie was subsequently criticised by the likes of Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher for damaging Duncan’s career which the agent denied, claiming that Michael Edwards, Liverpool’s sporting director, was nothing more than a ‘glorified data analyst’.
