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• Liverpool want €26m for their wantaway midfielder
• Catalans may offer Alexander Hleb and Martin Cáceres

Barcelona were tonight preparing a renewed bid for Javier Mascherano after the coach Pep Guardiola admitted that he wanted to sign a defensive midfielder. The comment comes in light of Mascherano’s refusal to play for Liverpool at Manchester City .

Barcelona’s initial bid of €15m (£12.3m) with €5m more in add-ons was rejected by Liverpool. The Anfield club are understood to be holding out for a fee closer to €26m. That is a valuation Barcelona are reluctant to match but they remain hopeful of concluding a deal by offering players in return, and because of the determination of Mascherano who has made his position abundantly clearto leave.

Although Guardiola refused to name the Argentinian directly, he did admit: “If a defensive midfielder arrives the needs of the team will be resolved. If one arrives I will be satisfied. I will only speak about [Mascherano] when he’s here, if he comes.”

Barcelona believe that is likely despite the fact that they are not in the best of financial health. The signing of David Villa for €40m was carried out by the former president Joan Laporta, amid criticism from the new president Sandro Rosell at what he described as the club’s “stratospheric” debt – which he calculated at more than €400m.

Rosell’s first act when he was elected in July was to seek a bank loan for €150m to cover players’ salaries. He also admitted defeat in the pursuit of Arsenal’s Cesc Fábregas, unable to offer a fee much in excess of €40m, and forced through the sale of Dimitro Chygrynskiy, even though Guardiola wanted to keep him.

Barcelona are prepared to offer Liverpool Alexander Hleb and Martin Cáceres in part exchange, to increase the bid beyond the current €20m. Pressure is building on the new president and sporting director from Guardiola to get the deal done.

Politically, they cannot be seen to have failed to provide reinforcements. Barcelona also believe they have a huge advantage because of Mascherano’s willingness to fight for a move. Their hand is stronger, certainly, than during the attempts to sign Fábregas, when their bullish confidence, both from the former regime and the current one, turned out to be misplaced. arcelona did not count on such stubborn resistance from Arsène Wenger and could not raise sufficient funds to persuade Arsenal to sell and although Fabregas told the Arsenal manager that he wanted to leave, he was unprepared to publicly rebel.

Mascherano has asked not to play for Liverpool, while his agent has openly spoken about his desire to depart England for Spain.Some are criticising the club for letting Yaya Touré go and effectively replacing him with the same type of player for much the same price. Touré fetched E28, £24m. In total, the fee for Mascherano looks like settling at a similar level.

The situation, though, has changed: when Barcelona sold Touré, the Ivorian’s agent had repeatedly spoken out in public about his client’s dissatisfaction at being a substituted and contract renewal talks had also stalled. Barcelona also sold him in the hope of raising the funds for a bid for Fabregas.

Having failed to secure the Arsenal captain they now have a vacant slot in central midfield that Guardiola believes has to be filled.

Barcelona may have one problem, though, with sources suggesting that a late bid from Internazionale should not be ruled out.

BarcelonaLiverpoolTransfer windowSid Loweguardian.co.uk

• Midfielder joins Italian club on a season-long loan
• Liverpool manager hcould not guarantee him a start

Alberto Aquilani has joined Juventus on loan for the rest of the season. The midfielder, signed by Rafael Benítez for Liverpool last year for £18m, was deemed surplus to requirements at Anfield after Internazionale ended their interest in Javier Mascherano.

The Liverpool manager, Roy Hodgson, was holding out for £25m for Mascherano and was unwilling to deplete his midfield options by letting Aquilani move until he knew whether the Inter would match his valuation for the Argentinian. Massimo Moratti, the Italian club’s president, confirmed yesterday that he would not.

Aquilani, who joined from Roma as a replacement for Xavi Alonso, was unable to make his debut for Liverpool until October due to an ankle injury and then only started nine games for the club, failing to make an impact in the process.

Hodgson felt he was could not offer the 26-year-old a guarantee of first team football either, saying: “He came here to play every week as a very expensive signing, the first name on the team sheet. But with Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano and Joe Cole, it’s going to be very hard for me to say: ‘You’ll always be the first name on that team sheet,’ so he would risk not getting enough games again.”

The Liverpool manager now hopes Aquilani will rediscover the form that led to Benítez signing him in the first place by playing regular football in Italy.

“After last year, when he came here injured and hardly played, it would be a disaster for him to have two years of hardly any football,” he said. “If he can get regular games for a top Serie A team, it gives him the football he needs and protects the value of the player. But first we need to get him back to being the player he was when he came over a year ago. We’re doing it with a view to bringing him back.”

LiverpoolJuventusTransfer windowPremier LeagueSerie AEuropean footballTom Bryantguardian.co.uk

• Internazionale still have not made bid for want-away midfielder
• ‘We want an offer that meets his value’ – Roy Hodgson

Roy Hodgson has warned Internazionale he is prepared to hold Javier Mascherano to his contract and let him leave Liverpool on a free transfer in 2012 rather than accept a cut-price offer for the Argentina captain.

Liverpool are only prepared to sanction a departure, Hodgson revealed, because of a gentleman’s agreement made when Mascherano was refused a move to Barcelona last year.

Inter, the European champions, were linked with the midfielder before they appointed the former Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez as José Mourinho’s successor in June. Italian officials have since held talks with their Anfield counterparts, Mascherano and his agent, Walter Tamer, and have frequently talked up a reunion with Benítez. But, almost a week after receiving £22.5m from Manchester City for Mario Balotelli, the Italian club have not made an offer for the 26-year-old.

Mascherano will miss Europa League play-off first leg against Trabzonspor with a calf injury. But Hodgson has told the midfielder to prepare for an extended stay should Inter fail to meet the asking price of £25m and admits an agreement struck last summer, when he was priced out of a move to Barcelona and asked to give the club one more season, has forced him to consider a sale.

Hodgson, who insisted Dirk Kuyt, another potential Inter target, is not for sale, said: “We want an offer that meets what we think is his value, and Javier is perfectly happy with this. He doesn’t expect the club to just let him walk out of here. He hopes that a club comes in where he could be reunited with his family, which is the major problem for him, that offers us what he is worth and we accept that. But he has also made it clear that he doesn’t regard it as a hardship to play for Liverpool football club. In fact, the reverse. It’s because of a family matter he wants to go.

“I’m very happy he remains with us because, in an ideal world, if it was simply a situation of would we be prepared to listen to offers for Mascherano, I would say ‘no.’ I don’t care what money is offered. It’s only a promise that was made a year ago that lingers over my head, which means I am even prepared to go as far as this.”

Mascherano’s wife and young children have not moved to Liverpool, a club he joined in February 2007, but Hodgson is confident Liverpool, who offered the Argentinian a contract extension at the end of last season, will not have a disillusioned player to contend with if he is forced to honour his current deal until 2012.

“He realises he is a very valuable player, the best at what he does in the world, and a club has to come along and offer us what he is worth,” the Liverpool manager said. “If that happens, and we said yet again no and reneged on what we’d said to him earlier, then we’d have an unhappy player. But we won’t have an unhappy player if no offer comes in or if the offer comes in and is so ludicrously below what he, I and the rest of the world knows he is worth.

“He has a new contract offer, so that’s up to him. As far as I am concerned, I’d be quite happy to work the two years with him. If he then wanted to walk away, then so be it. The nicest thing of all would be if he signed a new contract – it’s there for him. But nobody is putting him under any pressure.”

Daniel Agger will also be absent against Trabzonspor due to the concussion he suffered against Arsenal on Sunday. “He has no memory of the game whatsoever. He is not doing too well,” Hodgson said.

But Christian Poulsen, the £4.5m signing, will make his debut, possibly in place of the rested Steven Gerrard, while Fernando Torres is fit to make his first start although, with Manchester City away on Monday a priority for Hodgson, the Spaniard is expected to be on the bench. “Fernando is very keen to start and I haven’t made my mind up yet,” he said. “I don’t know if he is up to two games in four days. I would think he could do that, though. He’s worked very hard since he rejoined with us but what we must remember with Fernando, Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel is that they are doing a pre-season with games going on around them. We have to not be blinded by the fact they are three to four weeks behind.”

Liverpool will allow Diego Cavalieri to hold talks with the Serie A newcomers Cesena, having completed the £2.3m signing of Brad Jones from Middlesbrough. “Diego will be the substitute goalkeeper tomorrow. Then he will travel to Cesena for a medical,” Hodgson said. The manager also confirmed an interest in the PSV Eindhoven striker Ola Toivonen.

LiverpoolTransfer windowAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk