Liverpool: Benitez claims Alonso ‘agreed’ to sign for Prem rivals as he reveals two failed transfers

Former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez claims Xabi Alonso previously had an “agreement” to join one of their Premier League rivals as they “needed to sell”.

Benitez has appeared on The Overlap alongside Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Roy Keane, Ian Wright and Jill Scott as he reflected on his managerial career.

Unsurprisingly, most of the conversation centred around his time at Liverpool and he revealed Alonso once came close to joining Premier League rivals Arsenal.

This potential exit was discussed during the 2008 summer transfer window as Liverpool’s attempted move to sign Gareth Barry from Aston Villa meant they “needed to sell”.

“Xabi Alonso is a very good player, a very clever person, and someone that is right,” Benitez said on The Overlap.

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“When we went for Gareth Barry, it was because he could play in three different positions and then we needed to sell.

“Xabi had an agreement; he was talking with one club and had an agreement. The year after, we played Standard de Liège for a Champions League qualifier and we had Javier Mascherano and Lucas Leiva in the Olympic Games, Steven Gerrard had a lower back problem, so we had to play [Damien] Plessis and Xabi.

“Xabi had an agreement with Arsenal and didn’t want to get cup tied. I told Jamie Carragher and Gerrard before the game that he had an agreement and doesn’t want to play, but he must because it is the most important game to qualify for the Champions League.

“Then when you were going out for the warm-ups, you said, ‘Poor Xabi.’ Not poor Xabi, he is playing for our club at this time. During the season he was our best player and didn’t go to Arsenal because he had to play [for us].

“We played against Lazio in our last pre-season friendly and the fans were clapping for Xabi, but he was going to Arsenal, the fans loved him.”

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Benitez also revealed Liverpool tried to sign Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey when they were 17 but they “couldn’t compete” with Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal.

Later in the interview, the veteran manager claimed it was a turning point when he lost Alonso to Real Madrid in 2019 and replaced him with Alberto Aquilani.

“[On whether losing Xabi Alonso and Alberto Aquilani coming in was the turning point] Yes, you can see that, but we couldn’t compete,” Benitez added.

“People were criticising the signing of David N’Gog – we paid £1.5 million for him whereas the second striker of Manchester United could be £50 million easily. So, our top striker was Torres, and he was £20 million, so that was massive for us.

“But when I went to Liverpool and I was checking, the average points that Liverpool had was 72 and the lead was 82 points or something to win the league.

“Checking the statistics of the next year, the second year with all the records was 82. We did 82 and we finished third. The year that we nearly won, we had 86 points which was a record. So, we couldn’t do more because we had to sell players to buy players.”