Brendan Rodgers may have given up on under-performing winger Stewart Downing, with reports suggesting the club have told the 28-year-old he can leave Anfield as soon as the January transfer window opens.
The Liverpool Echo suggest that the Reds will listen to offers for the man they paid £20 million to Aston Villa for during Kenny Dalglish’s reign in the summer of 2011. The winger has been a peripheral figure at Anfield this campaign, slipping down the pecking order substantially, a slip contributed to by the emergence of Raheem Sterling and Suso.
Downing has not started a Premier League game since Liverpool’s opening day defeat to West Brom, making three additional appearances off the substitute’s bench. Downing’s exposure this season has come predominantly through Europa League games, and despite grabbing a winner in Liverpool’s home tie against Anzhi some weeks ago, it would appear his time at the Merseyside club is up.
Brendan Rodgers suggested back in September that Downing needed to show more “hunger and desire” in his game if he wished to remain part of the Liverpool set up. "You have to work hard; you have to fight for the shirt,” Rodgers told BBC Sport back in early October. “I will keep private the discussions Stewart and I have had but he is under no illusion that he has to fight.”
Liverpool necessity to strengthen their striking options may have also had a hand in the reported decision to let Downing go, although the club will be expecting to make a sizeable loss on the former Middlesbrough man.
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