Pardew: No Liverpool deal for Jose Enrique

Alan Pardew has denied that Newcastle United left-back Jose Enrique is bound for a summer move to Anfield.

Liverpool legend Phil Thompson caused controversy with comments to Norwegian TV over the weekend when he claimed that a transfer package between United and the Kop side was a "done deal."

The Spaniard had also been linked with Bayern Munich and AC Milan after it emerged that Enrique was unsettled on Tyneside when talks for a new deal were postponed by the 25-year-old until United "were safe" in the Premier League.

Newcastle are homing in on that target, but they are by no means safe just yet.

But Pardew has refuted ex-Liverpool assistant manager Thompson's claims that Enrique is heading to Merseyside.

The Toon boss told the Chronicle: "There's definitely no deal between the clubs - 100%.

"He's under contract here until next summer. And we hope to open talks on a new deal as soon as possible.

"That's where we are."

Should Liverpool or any of the other interested clubs want Enrique they would have to stump up the full-back's market value of course, with many football observers rating the ex-Villarreal man at over £8m.

Newcastle do, of course, have the exciting Irish teenager Shane Ferguson on their books and he has already proved to be an able deputy to Enrique in the past few weeks.

Also emerging from the reserves is Welsh youth international Paul Dummett, who had impressed in the second string this season before suffering injury.

Dummett, who is being fast-tracked through the Welsh FA's development system, is out for the rest of the season and still lacks experience despite a few call-ups to the first-team squad earlier this year.

But Pardew is hardly looking to go down that road just yet. He said: "We want to keep our best players, and Jose's one of them.

"As far as anything being a done deal, that's not true. We want Jose to stay.

"Nothing's changed."

Source: Chronicle Live 

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.