Big Sam`s keeping Tayls

Having been subject to the whole Liverpool and Spurs rumour mill since the rejection of a new five year deal a couple of weeks ago Big Sam has come out and stated his desire to keep Stevie T at the club. Speaking to the media yesterday he said:

'Steven Taylor is a key member of our squad. We want him to stay, apparently it sounds like he wants to stay, so hopefully we can resolve the problems. At the moment, we seem to be some way off, but we won't get sucked into paying somebody that we think is asking for too much. We want to give it a realistic look, and we have already started that process with the likes of Charles N'Zogbia, to push on to Nicky Butt and people like that who are in the last year of their contracts.

That's the next thing we have to do now that the window is shut. Hopefully very shortly, everybody will have agreed and we will have a much more settled camp. From my point of view, it's always a little bit disturbing when people are talking about contracts while you are playing Premier League football. It can upset the player on the field, and that's the last thing we want.

The position is that we offered what we considered a very good contract for a player of his age and his experience, and if they have turned it down, then that's fine. The disappointing this is - and I don't want to get into any slanging matches - is that it was publicised in the papers, and I think that was wrong by his father. But I will cover that when we get sat down to talk about it again.'

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