MARSEILLE coach Didier Deschamps has claimed that he turned down the chance to manage Liverpool in the summer after holding what he described as “a long discussion” with officials from the club.
The Frenchman takes his Marseille team to Stamford Bridge tonight to face his former club Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti, the manager with whom he briefly overlapped as a player at Juventus in 1999.
However, he suggested that but for the “timing” things could have worked out very differently. Liverpool parted company with Rafael Benítez in June and they included Deschamps on their shortlist of potential successors to the Spaniard. But their approach, Deschamps suggested, came too close to pre-season to persuade him to decamp from the south of France.
Liverpool appointed Roy Hodgson on July 1 and the former Fulham manager has endured a difficult start to his tenure, winning only one Premier League fixtures out of six and exiting the Carling Cup on penalties at home to the League Two club Northampton Town. Hodgson’s team have enjoyed better results in the Uefa Cup.
