Brendan Rodgers has revealed the reason why Jamie Carragher never joined his coaching staff while at Liverpool.
The former Reds boss replaced Sir Kenny Dalglish in 2012, and a year later Carragher would be hanging up his boots and calling time on his playing career.
At the time of Rodgers’ arrival, Carragher was about to start his 16th full season with the Reds and was in the final stages of his time on the pitch.
Rodgers says he took on the job at Anfield with the intention of giving Carragher a role in his coaching team, but that was not what the centre back wanted.
Speaking to The Beautiful Game Podcast, Rodgers says Carragher was more interested in focusing on playing rather than going into coaching.
“It was pretty straight forward,” said Rodgers. “It was funny because I had done an interview earlier on in the year when we had played Liverpool and Jamie asked me that question.
“It was straight forward. I was going in with the intention of asking him to come into my coaching staff rather than the playing side.
“But when I actually met him and joined as manager and met him before we started pre-season, my communication with him seemed more as though he wanted to be on the playing side and still focus on playing.
“If that was the case this wasn't going to be the role for him.
“A bit like Kolo Toure. You think of what Kolo has done for me.
“I took him to Liverpool, then at Celtic, and when he wasn't sure what he wanted to do I gave him the offer of coming into my technical team and that's what I was looking for in a similar role for Jamie.
“He was right he wanted to continue playing but I didn't sort of see the player-coach combination at that time. But he was absolutely first class for me in my time there.”
