Parry waits for Gerrard auction to start

Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry will sit nervously by the phone today, waiting for the call which will signal Steven Gerrard’s departure from Anfield.

A dejected Parry left work last night knowing the Reds will lose their captain as soon as the price is high enough.

Although there has been interest from Real Madrid, it is almost inevitable Gerrard will end up at Chelsea, whose manager Jose Mourinho is a long-time admirer of the England midfielder and can dip into Roman Abramovich’s vast wealth to pay the £40m Liverpool will demand.

And once he does go, Parry and manager Rafael Benitez will be left scratching their heads at how a player who only six weeks ago lifted the European Cup and declared his intention to stay, could so swiftly change his mind.

“He wanted success and presumably felt he would get success elsewhere – it is our job to prove him wrong,” Parry told Sky Sports News.

“It is not an issue about money. I don’t think money was a problem. It was about long-term commitment and feeling this was the place he wanted to be and where he wanted to win trophies.

“I did say to him, think of Istanbul, think of the fans. But in the final analysis he wanted to be elsewhere.”

After sending Gerrard away from Liverpool’s Melwood training ground on Monday night to sleep on a £100,000-a-week offer that would have made the Huyton-born star the highest paid player in the club’s history, Parry received the news he was dreading yesterday lunchtime through a call from the player’s agent Struan Marshall.

By that stage, Parry had already rejected a British record £32m bid from Chelsea, even though he knew the chances of keeping Gerrard were receding fast.

“The last six weeks have been the toughest of my life and the decision I have come to has been the hardest decision I have ever had to make,” Gerrard told Sky Sports News.

“I fully intended to sign a new contract after the Champions League Final but the events of the past five or six weeks have changed all that.

“I have too much respect for the club and the people at it to get involved in a slagging match.”

Attitudes are already hardening among the fans who counted Gerrard as one of their own and one supporter outside Anfield last night was so annoyed he even burned a shirt bearing the midfielder’s name.

“He is supposed to be a boyhood Red,” said Les Lawson, spokesman for the Liverpool International upporters’ Club. “As far as I am concerned he is not.

“He has turned down £100,000-a-week; I am still paying off my credit card bill from going to Istanbul to cheer him on and thousands of Liverpool supporters are the same.

“Where is the loyalty in that? He is going, but he is not going with his head held high.”

Now the die is cast, Benitez, who publicly expressed a desire for Gerrard to stay with Liverpool for the remainder of his career, will want to move quickly and bring in more reinforcements for the start of next month’s Premiership campaign.

“Rafa is very calm, very measured, very methodical in his thinking,” said Parry, whose club have to name their squad for next week’s Champions League qualifier with Total Network Solutions later today.

“We have not put deadlines on what happens next. It was not our decision, but at the end of the day, we are fairly calm.

“I don’t imagine it is just going to be one club bidding for Gerrard,” he added optimistically.

“It is only one day, although one day makes a big difference in negotiations as we have seen.”