Liverpool news: Brendan Rodgers rues Alexis Sanchez snub after Luis Suarez joined Barca

In the summer of 2014, Rodgers identified the Chilean forward as the perfect replacement for Luis Suarez, who was hellbent on securing his dream move to Barcelona.

After the Uruguayan striker moved to the Nou Camp for £75m, Sanchez, who was at the Catalan club at the time, rejected the chance to move to Anfield in favour of a £35m switch to Arsenal.

Suarez’s goals catapulted the Reds to their closest Premier League title challenge since Rafa Benitez’s era at the club and 44-year-old Rodgers admitted that failing to land a top-class replacement prevented Liverpool from going one step further.

“We felt like Luis [Suarez] was going to move on and we needed to get a world-class operator to go like-for-like,” Rodgers told TalkSport.

“We finished second in the league playing a great level of football. Players were flexible in how they could play and then it was about trying to make that next step.

“And for that we needed to get a replacement. And we deemed Sanchez to be that one.”

After missing out on Sanchez, the money from the Suarez deal was filtered into building the squad, but much of it was deemed as poorly spent.

Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert and Lazar Markovic were all brought in but failed to light up Anfield.

The following season the Reds finished sixth in the Premier League and Steven Gerrard ended the year as Liverpool’s top scorer in the league with 13 goals, a massive contrast to Suarez’s 31 from the previous campaign.

Rodgers lost his job to Jurgen Klopp after a poor start to the 2015/16 season, but has since repaired his reputation after taking over as Celtic manager.

Under his tenure, the Hoops have gone unbeaten in the Scottish Premiership and stormed to a league and cup double in his debut season.