The Daily Star has sent Liverpool supporters’ tongues wagging with a report which claims to know the wages of the first-team squad.
According to their article, Benteke is on the biggest wages at the club, £20k more than James Milner, who signed on a Bosman from Manchester City last summer and Daniel Sturridge – our talented if injury prone centre-forward.
The Benteke news is more shocking considering he’s currently our fourth choice striker and is a practical certainty to leave in the summer following his negative comments about Jurgen Klopp while away on international duty with Belgium (via ESPN).
Since signing for £32.5m, Benteke’s struggled to adapt himself to Klopp’s style, and has fallen out of favour with fans and management. Getting him off our books when he’s on such a vast sum may prove tricky, however.
Elsewhere, it’s unbelievable to see that Jose Enrique is one of the club’s best earners on £75k per week. That kind of money to play the odd game for the Under-21s is jaw-dropping.
Other notable names are Divock Orgi, who’s only (in football terms) on 15k and Jon Flanagan – who despite recently signing an extension and captaining the Reds – earns £25k.
Coutinho will need a new contract soon as well. The Brazilian’s performances over the past two years should make him our highest paid player – and we’ll need to tie him down for the foreseeable so as to deflect attention from European superpowers such as Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Here’s the full list:
£140,000 per week – Christian Benteke
£120,000 per week – James Milner, Daniel Sturridge
£100,000 per week – Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson,
£80,000 per week – Lucas Leiva
£75,000 per week – Philippe Coutinho, Jose Enrique, Mamadou Sakho, Martin Skrtel
£65,000 per week – Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Kolo Toure
£60,000 per week – Nathaniel Clyne, Simon Mignolet, Danny Ings
£55,000 per week – Emre Can
£45,000 per week – Joe Allen
£40,000 per week – Alberto Moreno
£30,000 per week – Steven Caulker
£25,000 per week – Jon Flanagan
£20,000 per week – Tiago Ilori
£15,000 per week – Adam Bogdan, Divock Origi
£10,000 per week – Joe Gomez, Jordon Ibe
£5,000 per week – Joao Teixeira