Reina: The Liverpool owners stopped me joining Arsenal for £20m
Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina nearly quit Anfield three times as the club fell apart under the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
The Spaniard has shed new light on the turmoil at Liverpool and claims the club stopped him from joining Arsenal in 2010 because they feared it would send out the wrong signal to potential buyers as the Hicks and Gillett era collapsed under a sea of debt.
Reina, who wanted permission to speak to Arsene Wenger as Arsenal tabled a £20million bid, claims there were splits in the Liverpool dressing room over the Americans and says he wanted local heroes Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher to do more to support fans' protests.
Reina also campaigned against the appointment of Roy Hodgson to replace Rafa Benitez.
After hitting his 'lowest ebb' under the new man, he considered leaving again in January - only to be talked out of it by his wife.
On an earlier occasion, Benitez had talked Reina out of joining Valencia.
The goalkeeper's head was turned by Arsenal when he returned from Spain's World Cup victory celebrations last year to find Liverpool in crisis with Benitez sacked, Hicks and Gillett clinging on to power and the running of the club left to managing director Christian Purslow, who was trying to find new owners.
'I went from elation one minute to depression the next as the realisation dawned that Liverpool were going nowhere fast,' says Reina in his new autobiography.
'When I signed my contract in April 2010 I hoped that better times were just around the corner, a feeling that was fuelled by the promises of improvement from people at the club.
'It didn't take me long to feel that their promises were hollow. I felt betrayed. Our owners were at war with each other, the club's debts were spiralling out of control and a change in manager had failed to dispel the feeling that we were on the road to nowhere.
'Arsenal had made their determination to sign me clear by offering £20m, a phenomenal amount for a goalkeeper. Part of me felt that I was well within my rights to consider my future even if I did so with a heavy heart.
'When Liverpool received the bid, they rejected it. This was not because I had been told that I was too good a keeper to leave. The reason I was given was quite different - and it left me feeling down. I was told that my continued presence was crucial to the sale of the club. I was simply a bargaining chip in the sales process.
'I still don't know what to think of Purslow because I understand he was there to look for new owners and to try to sell the club but ultimately he was making big football decisions that he was not qualified to make.'
Reina publicly called for Hicks and Gillett to go long before current owner John W Henry took over last October.
The 29-year-old also admits he would have liked Gerrard and Carragher to have taken a similar stand.
'I was probably one of the loudest objectors because I believed it was important the supporters knew I was with them,' he says.
'All I wanted the owners to do was sell up to people who could take the club forward, so I said so.
'The way I saw it, Stevie and Carra are the two principle members of our squad, the ones who the people love and if they had said something maybe it would have put Hicks and Gillett under real pressure.
'But in their view, it was more important to try to keep things as normal as possible.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2046871/Pepe-Reina-Liverpool-owners-stopped-joining-Arsenal-20m.htmlThis explains all those quotes of him saying how you can never say never, and how he might leave as well.
Even though Hicks and Gillett were holding on to him to just make more money themselves, I think it turned out to be one of the best things they did.
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