Everton goalkeeper Asmir Begovic has revealed he once nearly joined Liverpool but his club at the time, Stoke City, ‘wanted too much money’.
Begovic, 35, joined Everton as back-up to Jordan Pickford last summer and played seven times in all competitions across the campaign. The Bosnian stopper has also featured for Portsmouth, Stoke, Chelsea and AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League after joining Pompey as a 16-year-old in 2003.
He has been a reliable option for all of his clubs, making 255 Premier League appearances in total, putting him 24th on the league’s all-time leading appearances holders for goalkeepers. And he has revealed that despite now playing for the Blues, he almost once joined their arch rivals.
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Speaking on talkSPORT, where he also explained he twice came close to joining Tottenham, the Everton keeper discussed the Reds’ interest in him.
“The main one was Liverpool, it was between me and Mignolet at the time,” he told talkSPORT.
“At Stoke I was still under contract for three or four years so they wanted too much money and Mignolet only had one year left and he was a good deal for them, that was a close one.”
The period the Bosnian is referring to is the summer of 2013. Brendan Rogers was looking for a new goalkeeper as it was expected that Pepe Reina was off to Barcelona to replace the departing Victor Valdes. Rodgers had just come to the end of his first season at the club and was weighing up his options.
Mignolet starred for Sunderland that year, helping them to avoid relegation by keeping 11 clean sheets for the Black Cats across the campaign. Begovic had also impressed for Stoke as they continued to establish themselves in the top-flight and conceded just 45 goals that season, the seventh best defensive record in the league.
Mignolet was preferred and joined the Reds for £9m on a five-year-deal. He went on to make 204 appearances over a six-year-spell before he departed for Club Brugge in 2019.
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