There was no real surprise in Rafael Benitez’s admission that he would like Javier Mascherano to stay at Anfield. After all this is the man who, if the story is to be believed, went to Mascherano’s house unannounced and spent some three hours explaining to him how he saw him fitting into his team so as to convince him to join Liverpool.

At the time, Benitez was one of the few to believe in Mascherano. Stranded at West Ham with a manager who preferred Nigel Quashie to the Argentine international, his career was going nowhere and moving to England was turning out into a disaster.

Yet this was the same player who a few months earlier had been one of the most impressive midfielders on show in the World Cup. A player who, if reports were to be believed, was wanted by most of Europe’s elite clubs just before the decision for him to move to London had been made.

Mascherano had learnt at his own cost how fickle football can be. Fortunately for, Benitez still believed in his ability and despite the complications to agree a loan move, he still persisted and the deal went through.

Even so, most fans were under whelmed. Liverpool needed a striker, not a defensive midfielder a position where they already had a surplus of players.

Those views quickly changed, however. Mascherano put in a series of immaculate performances culminating in the Champions League final where he impressively managed to shackle Kaka, rendering the Brazilian a peripheral figure for most of the game.

This season he was expected to kick on from there. Yet that hasn’t happened. Whereas the tenacity was there his passing was often atrocious and he ended up giving the ball away almost as much as soon as he won it. It was only over the past couple of weeks that he has been showing the kind of form that he put on show last season.

In all probability, it was all a psychological issue. Apart from the Champions League, Mascherno had also lost the Copa America final against Brazil and these setbacks do have a huge impact on a player’s form.

Players are sometimes expected to shrug off such demoralising defeats but it doesn’t work that way. They will keep tormenting themselves on what they could have done differently to avoid losing. For Mascherano it was even worse: not only did he have less time to rest than the other players, he also had less time to deal with the aftermath of those defeats.

Now that his form has started to pick up, speculation is starting to kick in. Already, Barcelona have made it public that they want the player to join them once the current loan period which took him to Anfield comes to an end.

That both the player and the manager have expressed their desire for him to stay with Liverpool, that shouldn’t be a problem. The sticking point is likely to be the transfer fee that MSI, the agency that holds the rights to the player, is asking for the player.

This asking price currently stands at ₤17 million: quite a figure for a defensive midfielder who isn’t going to be a regular given Liverpool’s riches in the centre of the park.

The other side of the coin isn’t whether Liverpool can afford him but rather if they can do without him. Despite the overall quality of the squad having risen, the number of truly world class players is limited. Mascherano is one such player and there aren’t many to be found in circulation.

As Rafael Benitez continues to mould his team, Mascherano is increasingly being shifted to an important role. If Mascherano were to be allowed to leave, someone to replace him would still be required and given the way the transfer market is going, it is unlikely they would find someone of equal abilities.

The reality is that not exercising that option might prove to be false economy.