Barcelona defender Javier Mascherano has hit out at the way he was treated by Liverpool in his final days at Anfield.

Mascherano acknowledged his admiration for Liverpool but claims life was made difficult for him when the interest of Barcelona became clear.

"Liverpool is a special club and it does not deserve to be treated badly," he told The Times. "The people who were there at the time - the manager and Christian Purslow - have now gone but they know the truth.

"When I went back to Liverpool for pre-season I had a lot of meetings with them and they were promising a lot of thing to me but never kept their word."

He added: "I did not wake up one day and refuse to play. In the game before [Manchester] City we played against Arsenal and I gave everything because I was wearing the Liverpool shirt.

"Why would I do that and risk getting injured when I knew that Barcelona were close to signing me and then refuse to play in another game? That doesn't make any sense.

"We had been talking about completing the transfer for 20 days because the club also wanted to make it happen, but then they started to make things difficult for me."