WHEN Nuri Sahin arrived at Liverpool on loan from Real Madrid in 2012, he couldn’t speak highly enough of then-manager Brendan Rodgers
Six months later, he was thanking GOD that he no longer had to play under him.
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Sahin, 36, is now managing Borussia Dortmund and the pair will come face-to-face once again when Celtic travel to Germany for the second group stage fixture of this year’s Champions League.
And if Sahin’s previous comments are anything to go by, it won’t be the warmest of greetings between the pair.
Upon signing for the Reds, Sahin said: “The only reason I am here is that I know that I can play football, I know that I have a manager who trusts in me and the way I play, and I am at a huge club. That is why I am here.
“Brendan Rodgers told me about English football and said that I would love the Premier League because it is the best league in the world. I made my own mind up about Brendan Rodgers.”
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But Sahin called out the Northern Irishman after he left Anfield following just 12 appearances and revealed why they never hit it off.
Speaking to Spanish newspaper AS, Sahin said: “Brendan Rodgers wanted me to play as a 10. But I do not play behind the forwards.
“I spoke with him and asked him why I was playing there, it’s not my real position.
“The boss could not answer me… still, I am not sorry about it.
“To play in the red jersey and be in Anfield is something marvellous.
“Maybe if I had not gone there I would not have been able to return to Borussia Dortmund. For that, I am happy.
“But I have left Brendan Rodgers, thanks be to God.”
The man who succeeded Rodgers in the dugout on Merseyside, Jurgen Klopp, actually back up the player’s view.
Klopp said: “Nuri’s a brilliant player. It was the wrong position [for him to play].
“If you are a No. 8 or 6 and you have to play as a No. 9 or 10, it’s not possible.
“For some guys of course it’s possible, but Nuri’s a brilliant player, not nine-and-a-half and not 10, and I don’t know why Brendan Rodgers would do this.”
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