England defender tells lengths Liverpool players went to trying to persuade Jude Bellingham to sign

Leicester defender Conor Coady has claimed Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold did their utmost to try and convince Jude Bellingham to sign for Liverpool prior to his move to Real Madrid.

Bellingham moved to the Spanish capital last summer in a deal that could eventually be worth around £115m but prior to the blockbuster switch from Borussia Dortmund, the England international had long been courted by the Reds.

Liverpool eventually accepted the finances involved would be too exorbitant and dropped out of the race around April 2023 but before that decision was taken Bellingham was being intensely linked with a huge move to Anfield.

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Speaking to BBC 5 Live, former Liverpool and Everton centre-back Coady jokingly retold of his experience during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar when both Henderson and Alexander-Arnold would "man mark" their Three Lions colleague in an effort to quietly sell Liverpool as the destination he should choose when leaving Dortmund.

"I think Hendo and Trent tried with Jude [to get him to sign]. At the World Cup, yeah 100%," Coady said. "They man marked him! (laughs). They man marked the life out of him.

"I think those two tried it and if you're at a club like that you would, wouldn't you? Of course you would. When you know he is going to leave in the summer, which was quite common knowledge wasn't it that he was going to leave and there was all these clubs in for him.

"So 100% you would, without a shadow of a doubt. Oh it was [every meal time] and they were either side of him. One was always sat on that side and the other side. And we were all sat there and they would be talking about how good Liverpool is, how good Klopp is and all this sort of stuff and we'd all be sat there having something to eat listening to them."

Bellingham's first season with Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid ended with him winning La Liga and the Champions League and the midfielder is expected to start when England meet Slovakia in the European Championship on Sunday.