Defour chase on hold

Liverpool and Manchester United will have to wait until next summer to battle it out to sign Belgian midfielder Steven Defour, according to the player’s agent Paul Stefani.

The  Belgian international will instead spend the forthcoming season in his current surroundings at Standard Liege.

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was thought to be leading the race to sign the player while Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City are also closely monitoring the situation.

Having sustained a terrible leg break last season, messrs Ferguson and Hodgson are now cautiously waiting to see if the playmaker will recover from the potentially career threatening fitness problem.

Defour, 22, won the Golden Shoe in 2008, the official award for the most valuable player in the Belgian league, however the leg break sustained in September 2009 kept the talented midfielder on the sidelines for much of the last campaign.

United boss Ferguson even wrote to the player to commiserate over the leg break which ruled him out of much of last season's Champions League campaign promising to keep in touch with the youngsters progress.

Representative Stefani revealed yesterday: "It's highly likely Steven will be a Liege player this season.

"In the future, you don't know. Of course there is interest from some clubs but Steven wants to play more games at his current club.

"He has had an injury and needs to get back playing regularly, so for now it's best if he stays put."

Stefani confirmed to Sport.co.uk on Monday that Defour must concentrate on his recovery this summer:

"At the moment we are waiting for Steven's injury problems to be finished and for him to start training. He is not 100 % fit and he has not recover fully from his injury. So nothing can happen.

"You never know what will happen in the future, but at the moment there is nothing, he must concentrate on recovering."

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