Going to City is not a step up, we’re a bigger club, insists Rodgers
LIVERPOOL manager Brendan Rodgers has written off Manchester City’s chances of signing Raheem Sterling this summer by declaring the Anfield club are bigger than their Etihad rivals and making it clear they have no intention of becoming their feeder team.
Ahead of today’s FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa at Wembley, a bullish Rodgers indicated it could take two decades for Sheik Mansour’s club to reach the status of either Liverpool or Manchester United.
City have been heavily linked with a £50million move for Sterling, who has two years left on his current contract and is stalling on negotiating a new deal. The reigning Premier League champions have also monitored vice-captain Jordan Henderson, who only has a season left on his Anfield contract.
However, Rodgers was emphatic that moving to City would not represent a step up for any of his players.
‘If you say that Manchester City is a bigger club than Liverpool, you’re wrong,’ he insisted.
‘I’ve got big respect for what Manchester City are doing there – they’re trying to build it the right way.
‘But at this moment you can’t compare the size of the two clubs.
‘You’ve got Liverpool and Manchester United, the two biggest clubs in this country and the rest of them are fighting to be there over the next 20 years. I wouldn’t say we were a development ground for going to “bigger” clubs.’
City have regularly tried to sign players from Arsenal and Liverpool hoping to weaken their Champions League rivals.
They have bought Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Bacary Sagna and Kolo Toure from Arsenal but failed to lure targets such as Fernando Torres from Anfield.
This summer, Liverpoolwill also try to lure James Milner from City on a Bosman.
Rodgers will hope victory against Villa today will help back up his assessment. He currently stands alongside Roy Hodgson as the only Liverpool manager of the last 50 years not to have won silverware at the club.
However, having boosted the squad last summer to compete in all competitions, he believes they are ready to take the next step.
‘Our vision is to win trophies. The first objective was to get into the Champions League again. We arrived there this year and could focus on winning a trophy. We just have to concentrate on performance levels, get to the final and we’ll take it from there.’
Captain Steven Gerrard is available again after serving a threematch ban for stamping on Manchester United’s Ander Herrera and Rodgers faces a big decision whether to name him from the start in what could be his final appearance at Wembley before his summer move to Los Angeles Galaxy.
Ironically, the biggest threat to the Liverpool manager comes from his former player Scott Sinclair, who scored a Wembley hat-trick for Rodgers’ Swansea City when they beat Reading in the Championship play-off final in 2011.
Sinclair made only two Premier League starts for Manchester City after signing from the Welsh club but is now on loan at Villa and expected to join permanently in the summer.