Bobby Duncan’s agent Saif Rubie has released a statement hitting out at Liverpool for their treatment of the 18-year-old forward.
Duncan only joined Liverpool from Manchester City last year and after just over 12 months of not being able to break into Jurgen Klopp’s first-team squad, the England youth international’s agent has now made the spat between him and the club public with a lengthy statement.
Rubie’s statement, posted via his personal Twitter account on Wednesday, says that sporting director Michael Edwards’ reluctance to let Duncan leave Anfield has led to concerns about his mental health and he is not prepared to turn up for the Merseyside club for the remainder of his contract, which expires next year.
Rubie also accuses Liverpool of “mentally bullying” the young striker and “destroying” his life.
Duncan has acknowledged the statement by retweeting it on his personal Twitter account.
https://twitter.com/bobbyduncan999/status/1166699179038642176
OPINION
Wow. That statement has aimed some truly damning accusations at Liverpool and it will be interesting to see how Edwards, and the rest of the club’s hierarchy, deal with it. Hopefully this has not had an impact on Duncan’s mental health, but if it has, then Liverpool need to just let him go, apologise and learn from any mistakes they might have made. Duncan is a good young player but for him to be jumping from club to club, expecting to get into the first-team at the age of 18, shows that he is not exactly a realist. While it’s fine to have ambition, there’s no way that Klopp would have risked playing someone as inexperienced as him in the Premier League and Champions League last season, especially when other attacking players were playing so well. It is going to be hard for fans to sympathise with Duncan but if this has led to “mental bullying”, as the statement says, then that is quite a serious thing that needs to be looking into by the PFA, FA and Premier League.
