Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard admits he was ‘guilty of flirting’ on secret phone call with former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho

Mourinho had just taken charge of Chelsea, who had assembled an all-star team featuring Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba, and were also pursuing the signing of Gerrard.

It was no surprise then that Mourinho, backed by Roman Abramovich, courted Gerrard, and called him out of the blue as he looked to pair him with Lampard in midfield.

“(I saw a missed call from a) number on my phone that I didn’t recognise,” he said.

“I called it back and it was Jose Mourinho, which was a bit like, ‘what do you do and say here? Are you meant to be calling me?'”

A transfer from Liverpool to Chelsea is not a common one. There was fanfare when Fernando Torres made the switch in January 2011, but for Gerrard it was a move that might have made sense.

Chelsea were becoming a force both domestically and in Europe and went on to win the Premier League in record style that year, reaching 95 points and conceding only 15 goals – a record that still stands.

It is no surprise then that Gerrard was intrigued by the prospect of joining Chelsea, especially as he said he felt a shift at Anfield and from manager Rafael Benitez.

“I was (tempted),” he continued. “It was in 2004, and I was very happy where I was, but after the Champions League final I had two years left on my contract and the club was starting to speak to people who had three years on the contract (to renew).

“So I was getting a bit of a different feel from the club, a different feel from Rafa.

“Rightly or wrongly, my relationship with Rafa was strong from a football perspective, but very cold in terms of the man management compared to (previous manager Gerard) Houllier.

“I was having conversations with Rafa where he was saying, ‘I know your agent is speaking to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and Chelsea’, which wasn’t the case, by the way – I wish!

“He was saying to me, ‘are you sure you want to be here?’ And I was getting doubts.”

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He added: “To cut a long story short, I end up signing a new deal with Liverpool and was extremely happy.

“Everything was fine with Rafa from there onwards and we went on from there.

“Of course I was guilty of doing a bit of flirting. Mourinho was on the phone, arguably the best manager in the world at the time, or the hottest manager at the time.

“When he speaks, his convincing skills and his people skills over the phone and face to face from a manager’s perspective is high level.”