Gerrard: ‘Rodgers made me text top stars to convince them to join Liverpool’

It turns out it's not only your mum who forces you to send cringeworthy texts to friends and family.

Steven Gerrard has revealed that Brendan Rodgers used to ask him to take advantage of his impressive phone directory by tapping up star names to get them to join Liverpool. It seems Rodgers felt it be better coming from Gerrard as one of the most respected players on the continent, rather than the Anfield boss himself. As Gerrard explains:

'I had an unofficial role at the club, trying to persuade some great players to join Liverpool. It was the same ritual every summer. The club would let me know which long-shot target they had in mind and then ask me to contact him. They thought that a request to consider moving to Liverpool would have more impact coming from me.'

He admits that one 'long-shot target' was very ambitious indeed:

‘Brendan asked me to take a crack at trying to talk Toni Kroos into signing for Liverpool. He smiled when I said we’d be p***ing into the wind with this one...I knew Real Madrid were gearing up to make Bayern Munich an offer and so I felt a bit awkward when I texted Kroos. The German was on his way to winning the World Cup with his country and Real were the champions of Europe. ‘Some of the best footballers in the world can also be the most respectful. Kroos didn’t make me feel like I was a total idiot. But, of course, he would soon sign for Real Madrid. We had a nice little exchange of texts and I said well done and good luck.’

Probably for the best. Would Kroos even get in the side with Hendo, Milner, Lucas and Can to compete with?