but there was no chance I was going there

Liverpool agreed to sell me to Man City - but there was no chance I was going there

Daniel Agger has lifted the lid on rejecting a move to Manchester City while he was at Liverpool

Daniel Agger celebrates after scoring Liverpool's opening goal during the Premier League match against Southampton at Anfield on December 1, 2012 (Image: John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images )

Liverpool brought in one of their most popular signings of the 2000s 19 years ago this very day, completing a £5.5m deal to sign Danish defender Daniel Agger from Brondby. Now 40, Agger went on to enjoy a fine eight-year career on Merseyside under managers Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson, Sir Kenny Dalglish and later Brendan Rodgers.

Despite enduring a difficult time with injuries during his stay at Anfield, the classy defender was ever popular with supporters as he went on to make 212 appearances for the Reds. And the former Denmark international was part of Benitez's Liverpool side that came within a whisker of sealing a first Premier League crown in 19 years in 2009, only to miss out on title success to Manchester United by four points after several draws throughout the campaign.

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Agger would return to Brondby at the end of the 2013/14 season, a campaign that saw the Reds miss out on the title again, but he has since revealed that he rejected a mega-money move to Manchester City two years earlier - despite the Reds wanting to cash in.

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Indeed, by 2012, Agger found himself at the centre of a transfer tug-of-war between Man City and Barcelona, who both hoped to capitalise on the defender's expiring contract. However, after Spanish giants Barca's offer was blown out of the water by the UAE-backed City, Agger admits he had no interest in swapping Merseyside for Manchester.

“It was a strange one,” said Agger, reflecting on the events of 2012. “I remember I got presented for all these things and the club asked me what I was going to do and I said, ‘If you want me here, I will stay’. But I said, ‘If you don’t want me, if you don’t see me as part of your future I think it’s time that I go because I want to play football. I prefer to do it here but if you don’t think I’m good enough then I would like to go because these offers are on the table and I don’t know if I will have them next year'.

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“I don’t know the story from their side, I think they agreed a price (with Barcelona) and they accepted it and came to me and said, ‘this is it’. I said, ‘okay, fair enough’. But then from the side, another offer came in which was a lot higher, which they accepted and I didn’t want to go to that club.

“I said, ‘if you want to sell me I go down there (to Barcelona) otherwise I don’t go’. And another offer came in from the same club (Man City), higher, and my feeling was that the club wanted me to go because it was a lot of money back then. I said, ‘there’s no chance I’m going to that club, so better just stop now’.”

Speaking on the 'Aldo Meets' Podcast, host and Liverpool ECHO columnist John Aldridge asked Agger if the other club in question was Manchester City, to which he replied: "Yeah."

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After falling down the pecking order under Rodgers in 2013/14, Agger left Liverpool and returned to Brondby in 2014, aged 29. In 2016, Agger retired from the sport altogether.

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