Liverpool's teenaged striker Bobby Duncan has broken his silence after his agent accused the club of "mentally bullying" the striker - only to delete his social media post almost immediately after.
On Wednesday, Duncan's representative Saif Rubie posted a lengthy statement on social media claiming Liverpool had previously agreed to allow the England Under-18 international to move on this summer and claiming the current impasse is threatening his client's mental health.
Those controversial comments led to a public bust-up between the agent and Premier League club, who hit out at the "inaccurate speculation" and "inflammatory statements".
Now Duncan has taken to social media website Twitter and to write "I just want to play football!" - but the post was almost immediately deleted.
Striker Duncan, the 18-year-old cousin of Steven Gerrard, has been linked with the likes of Fiorentina and FC Nordsjaelland in recent days as he seeks first-team football, but Liverpool reportedly rejected a £1.6million bid from the Florence club on Tuesday, calling it derisory.
Duncan scored 32 goals for Liverpool's under-18s last season after joining from Manchester City and was on target against Tranmere in a pre-season friendly, but is thought to be frustrated at a lack of first-team opportunities.
In the initial statement, Rubie also wrote that Duncan missed the Liverpool Under-23 game against Southampton on Monday due to "deep mental health issues" because of the "stress of being told he can leave the club but (the club) then going out of their way to force him to stay against his will".
Rubie added: "Bobby has not left his room for days because of this and will never go back to Liverpool again and my only concern now is his mental health and well-being.
"The Liverpool hierarchy have shown zero consideration to that and have even gone (as) far as saying in writing that they will punish him and make him stay at the club until January and beyond to teach him a lesson...
"It's a sad state of affairs that a club such as a Liverpool can be allowed to get away with mentally bullying and destroying the life of a young man such as Bobby."
But Liverpool strongly rejected Rubie's claims in a statement.
"Liverpool Football Club is aware of and disappointed by the unattributed comments and unfounded allegations that have been made in the media regarding one of our players," the statement said.
"As the interests of the player in question are not best served by either inaccurate speculation, inflammatory statements or public discourse, we will be making no further comment.
"We will, however, continue our efforts to work privately with the player to find resolution in the best interests of all involved."
