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Brendan Rodgers was left to reflect on the three Chelsea stars who got away on Saturday afternoon – plus Alexis Sanchez, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Yevhen Konoplyanka – and concede that Liverpool need to work “harder and smarter” to convince the world’s marquee players to end up at Anfield.

Rodgers missed out on Chile’s World Cup star Sanchez this summer, Borussia Dortmund’s playmaking midfielder previously and the Ukrainian left-sided star last January.

But it was the failure to land the trio of talents who ended up at Stamford Bridge which hurt most.

Mo Salah the Reds can probably live without, but Willian was the man who rubbed salt into the gaping wound opened up by Demba Ba in April, then there is Diego Costa.

Liverpool targeted the man on course to replace Luis Suarez as the Premier League’s Golden Boot winner when he was a 10-goal a season marksman at Atletico.

But they missed out.

“I had the chance to leave,” he told Mundo Deportivo last summer. “I was about to do so. Liverpool are a great team but, after so much fighting and overcoming many difficulties to earn my place at Atletico, how was I going to leave?

"I thought that it was very important for me to continue growing in this club and to play here for many years.”

(Image: Getty)

When he did decide to leave, it was for Chelsea.

And after Suarez’s exit this summer he is the man Rodgers could most have done with on Saturday.

“We need to be better in the final third with that creativity and the ability to score goals important for us,” he said. “We have signed talented young players and I’m sure over the time – whether that’s with me here or not – they will show that they are very good players.

“We know what targets we wanted and what was out there, but for one reason or another they are not here and gone elsewhere. We work with what we’ve got and look to improve what we’ve got and get back to somewhere near the level we’ve shown over the last 18 months.”

Agonisingly runners-up to Manchester City last season, Rodgers had a golden opportunity this summer to build on a staggeringly exciting squad.

But with Sanchez electing to join Arsenal and Suarez exiting to Barcelona an opportunity has been missed.

Rodgers believes that is not the fault of anyone at Anfield.

“We were in a great position at the end of last season, with Champions League football and a way of working, but we just have to work harder and smarter to convince these players to come,” he said.

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“As I said the club has done everything it could over the course of the summer to get the players who are going to improve us.

“But players look for more than just football terms. They look at where they want to live, they look at all these social factors and that’s something we can’t control. If someone gets offered say more money to come here but they want to go elsewhere, they want to go to London, there’s not much you can do.

“I think the club have shown their hand in terms of they will be prepared to pay the wages of top players, but whether they want to come here is a different matter.

“I think it’s where we’re at. We need to work harder and smarter again.

“We have brought in a raft of players who can hopefully develop and mould into a way of working and be better in the future.”

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