Steven Gerrard has confirmed that he nearly left Liverpool for Chelsea.
Rangers boss Gerrard made 710 appearances for the Anfield club, but was linked with a move to Jose Mourinho's Chelsea side in 2004 and 2005.
Gerrard now admits that there was "flirting" on his part, and says Chelsea made a substantial bid for his services.
Speaking to Manchester United legend Gary Neville on his Sky Sports Soccerbox show, the Ibrox manager said: “I regret the little bit of flirting back then and how that all blew up.
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"The fact is I didn’t know whether I was coming or going with Rafa (Benitez) at the time. Rafa was having conversations with me like ‘I know your agent is talking to Real Madrid and Chelsea’.
"I got a paranoid feeling at the time that Rafa would have taken money to try and build Liverpool on.
“Chelsea bid £37.5 million. At the time, massive amounts of dough but what would you get for that now?”
“Mourinho was a massive part of that. A lack of maturity on my part allowed me to think about it and flirt with that idea a bit.
"But now I have no regrets at all because Liverpool are the club I love - and that’s the way it should be.”
