ROY HODGSON fired a parting shot at Javier Mascherano after the Argentine midfielder moved to the brink of a move to Barcelona.

Mascherano is expected to complete the transfer in the next 24 hours after Liverpool agreed a fee believed to be in the region of £20million with the Catalan side.

The Spaniards were keen to sign 26-year-old last season only for Anfield officials to successfully persuade the player to stay on for another season.

Barcelona their interest this summer after Mascherano declared his intention to leave but, after two bids were rejected last week, Hodgson declared the midfielder had become affected by the approach and was not in the right frame of mind to play.

It disrupted Liverpool's preparations for the trip to Manchester City on Monday, a game they lost 3-0, and left Hodgson clearly left unhappy at Mascherano's “selfish” attitude.

“It's not easy to defend his actions because professionals are paid to play and when called upon to do so, they should,” said the Liverpool manager. “But it's a complicated situation, to be fair to him.

“I had a similar situation at Blackburn when someone was very agitated when I first went there. Graeme Le Saux was determined to go to Chelsea and that caused us problems in the pre-season.

“Then Tim Sherwood was wanted by Tottenham and that caused problems because he was determined to get back to London, he thought he'd done enough at Blackburn and wanted to return to his roots. So this situation can occur unfortunately and you have to live with it.