Liverpool stars Virgil van Dijk and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain rejected Chelsea to move to Liverpool in 2017 not because of the club but because of the manager at the time, according to a report in Athletic.
The Athletic report states that both players snubbed Chelsea in favour of Liverpool because they wanted to work with Jurgen Klopp and not Antonio Conte.
2017 turned out to be a terrible window for Chelsea where £138m was spent on Alvaro Morata, Danny Drinkwater and Tiemoue Bakayoko, who spectacularly flopped at Stamford Bridge.
According to the report, both Van Dijk and Oxlade-Chamberlain were doubtful about how long Conte would be in charge at Chelsea and were reluctant to play under the pragmatic and disciplinarian Italian, while they had no such issues with Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.
In the end, Conte was sacked by Chelsea at the end of the 2017/18 season while Van Dijk and Oxlade-Chamberlain secured moves to Liverpool and were instrumental in the club’s Champions League trophy win in 2018/19 under Jurgen Klopp.