Boro boss warns Liverpool off star defenders

MIDDLESBROUGH boss Steve McClaren has warned Liverpool to forget trying to sign defenders Franck Queudrue and Chris Riggott.

Rafael Benitez is reportedly preparing to move for the 27-year-old Frenchman and his 25-year-old team-mate during the January transfer window.

But McClaren has told the Merseysiders, who infuriated Boro by their ultimately successful pursuits of both Christian Ziege and Bolo Zenden, that the two men are simply not for sale.

“We are flattered, obviously, that such a big club is interested in two of our younger players,” he said. “They are players who are doing very, very well for us and two players who we have got no intention of letting go. They are the future of Middlesbrough Football Club.”

McClaren’s determination to hang on to Queudrue, who initially joined the Teessiders on loan from Lens in October 2001 before completing a €3.65 million move the following summer, and Riggott, a €2.2m signing from Derby in January 2003, is a reflection of his belief that Boro cannot be regarded as a selling club.

Since he arrived at the Riverside Stadium in 2001, Bryan Robson’s successor has invested heavily in the likes of Gareth Southgate, George Boateng, Massimo Maccarone, Mark Viduka and Aiyegbeni Yakubu, while at also making use of the loan and free transfer systems to recruit players such as Zenden, Gaizka Mendieta and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. To that end, he has had the full support of chairman Steve Gibson, who heinsists is the driving force behind the club’s desire to hang on to its better players.

“This is what we want to do,” said McClaren. “We want to develop our academy, we want to bring young players through. We do not want to sell them, we want to build this club for the future.

“We will be talking about that at a later date and the reasons why, but we are building a team here and that is what the chairman has always stressed.

“I have got to say, in the just over four years I have been here working with the chairman, he’s never once said we need to sell, we need to sell our best players. In fact, he’s the opposite.

“When opportunities do arise, he’s the one who puts his foot down and says ‘No, we shouldn’t sell our best players’, so we get great backing from the chairman in that respect, so we can build the club with the younger players and the likes of Riggott and Queudrue, who we have brought to this club as younger players for the future. It’s great that we’ve got the backing to hold on to them.”

Hasselbaink, 33, this week indicated he would be happy to see out the rest of his career at the Riverside with his current deal due to expire at the end of the season.