Liverpool "reject Babel's Ajax loan request"

Ryan Babel's agent has claimed that the Liverpool winger has tried and failed to engineer a loan move back to Ajax after growing disillusioned at a lack of first team football at Anfield.

Empics

Ryan Babel: Not happy at Liverpool

Babel moved from Ajax to Merseyside in the summer of 2007 for a fee understood to be in the region of £11 million and agreed five-year deal, however the 21-year old has struggled to hold down a place in Rafa Benitez's first XI.

According to quotes from his agent Winnie Haatrecht, Babel was keen to kick-start his career with a temporary return to Holland in January but Liverpool dismissed the suggestion.

''Ryan finds that he sits on the bench too much at Liverpool, he wants to play more and asked me to see if Ajax were interested in a temporary return,'' Haatrecht told the Tuesday edition of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

''After we got an enthusiastic reaction from Ajax, we asked Liverpool for their co-operation but the club don't want to see him go.

''Rafael Benitez finds Ryan too important. Hopefully we will see that in more playing time. Let's be clear: Ryan feels great at Liverpool, but for him to develop further he needs to get playing time.''

Babel has made 17 appearances in all competitions this season but the majority of those have come off the bench.