ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Stoke City v Liverpool:GLEN JOHNSON'S future at Liverpool is in serious doubt after Roy Hodgson delivered a damning assessment of his form this season and claimed he has performed nowhere near the level expected of an England international.

Johnson has been restricted to one start in Liverpool’s past seven games by injury, and will again be absent at Stoke City this evening because of an adductor strain.

Even before his fitness problems, however, the 26-year-old had jeopardised his first-team place with several woeful displays and Hodgson’s public rebuke indicates Liverpool’s new owners may be willing to listen to offers for the right-back in January.

“He’s the England right-back and if he plays like that one would expect him to come back in,” the manager said. “But then he’d have to play like the England right-back and up to now, to be quite frank, he’s not performed – very often at least – to the level I’d expect.

“You would have to ask him the question: ‘Do you think you’re playing at top form and are you playing like the best right-back in the country for your club?’ If he says ‘yes’, obviously we will have to agree to differ, and if he says ‘no’, then you’d have to ask the question: ‘Why not?’ ”

It is believed Johnson has struggled to settle on Merseyside since his €22 million transfer from Portsmouth in July 2009 and Hodgson’s criticism suggests a possible problem between the player and the club’s new manager.

Tottenham Hotspur, Internazionale and Juventus have been linked with the defender, whose cost to Liverpool may be considered by New England Sports Ventures should a bid materialise.

The former manager Rafael Benitez has admitted he had paid a premium to sign an English right-back, although approximately half the transfer fee was offset by money Portsmouth owed Liverpool for Peter Crouch. Liverpool are understood to have given Johnson a four-year contract worth around €142,000 a week.

One senior player who has dismissed doubts over his immediate future at the club is goalkeeper Jose Reina, who issued a statement on the club website in response to a report he had told Hodgson he wanted to go. Reina has a release clause in his contract and has been strongly linked with Arsenal.

“It is completely untrue,” he said. “I have not told the manager that I wish to leave in January, or at any other time. It is important our fans know this. Our new owner met me and some of the other players last week and I was very happy with what he told me.”

• Guardian Service