REVEALED: Why Ben Chilwell rejected Liverpool for Leicester City

When Ben Chilwell was 17, Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers tried to sign him. Again at 19 he was targeted by the Reds – so why did he stay with Leicester City?

Since Leicester City left-back Ben Chilwell decided, prudently, to put himself through an intense pre-season schedule in 2018 – running “minging” drills in his local Milton Keynes park – he quickly became the Foxes first choice in that position.

Subsequently the 22-year-old also gave boss Gareth Southgate an answer to the inconsistency issue of Luke Shaw and Danny Rose for England – becoming the first choice Three Lions player in the role at that time as well.

In the 2018/19 campaign Chilwell was marvelous. Probably only second in quality to Liverpool’s Andy Robertson: a player the Reds signed around the period their – now proven – interest in the Leicester defender was apparent.

Though in 2019/20 Chilwell hasn’t been able to replicate his prowess from the previous term quite yet, he is still superb weekly for the East Midlands side. Not to mention being a dead cert for Southgate’s squads.

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Liverpool wanted the Leicester City man

At an event this week, England’s No.3 spoke to Sky Sports about Liverpool’s monitoring of him, how serious the interest was and why he chose to stay on Filbert Way rather than pursue or pressure a move North:

"“I was 17 at the time. My agent was the one dealing with it all, talking to Liverpool and Leicester about the situation.“At the time, I was trying to break into the U21 team at Leicester so I was just focused on getting into that and progressing into the first team here.Definitely no regrets. When I look at how the last four or five years have gone, starting eight games now for the England team is something I’m very happy with.“Leicester was the right place for me to be at the time and the older players have helped me a lot. The staff have kept me grounded. Definitely no regrets.”– Ben ChilwellRead much more from him on the team and manager at Sky Sports"

Additionally, Sky also mentioned that it was Rodgers who targeted Chilwell while at the Liverpool helm. Along with current Anfield chief Jurgen Klopp keeping tabs on the Foxes academy graduate in 2016. Do you think Leicester can hold on to their full-back and others such as James Maddison – the duo are in the fresh England squad announced Thursday – and Caglar Soyuncu during summer 2020’s transfer window?