Brendan Rodgers has revealed that he tried to sign Alexis Sanchez from Barcelona during his time as Liverpool manager, only to instead settle for Mario Balotelli.
The Reds were on the lookout for a like-for-like replacement to come in for Luis Suarez, who netted 31 times in the 2013-14 campaign as his side came agonisingly close to winning their first Premier League title.
Suarez left for Barca in a £75m deal and Liverpool turned their attention to Sanchez, but the Chile international instead opted for Arsenal and the Merseyside outfit had to settle for one of their back-up choices at half the price.
"We felt like Luis was going to move on and we needed to get a world-class operator to go like-for-like," he told talkSPORT. "We finished second in the league playing a great level of football.
"Players were flexible in how they could play and then it was about trying to make that next step. And for that we needed to get a replacement. And we deemed Sanchez to be that one."
Balotelli managed just four goals in 28 matches for Liverpool, while Sanchez has racked up more than half a century of league goals since the start of 2014-15.
Daniel Lewis
