Jurgen Klopp has revealed the talk led to Jordan Henderson’s Liverpool exit.
Henderson ended a 12-year association with Anfield this summer in favour of linking up with ex-teammate Steven Gerrard for Saudi Pro club Al Ettifaq.
The England international later claimed that his decision to leave the Reds was motivated by feeling unwanted in close-season conversations with Klopp.
But the Liverpool manager provided further context to Henderson’s remarks on Friday ahead of his side’s Premier League trip to Wolves this weekend.
“Hendo said the truth, in all departments, that’s how it was,” said Klopp.
“We had our talks and I told Hendo I wanted him to stay but we had to talk in these conversations as well about the possibility of not playing regularly.
“I told him we [would] bring in players and stuff like this. You don’t have these talks and say, ‘Hendo, you will play’.
“I cannot have a talk before a season and tell a player they will have 50 games this season, 100 per cent, because I don’t know that. It all depends on performance.
“If Hendo would have performed, he would have had maybe 50 games, absolutely fine, absolutely possible.
“But in the specific situation with the relationship we had, I thought it was important that we speak about everything.
“Hendo is a fantastic player, I will love him forever, super guy, but he’s not great when he’s not playing, let me say it like that.
“Milly (James Milner) was like that when I arrived here and Lucas Leiva was like this. You always thought they are great guys.
“But then the moment they see the line-up and they are not involved, they turn into Jekyll and Hyde, it’s unbelievable.
“That’s Hendo’s problem, so you have to talk about that. He was my captain for seven-and-a-half, nearly eight years.
“So I had to talk about that because I don’t want to wake up one morning and need to lock horns with each other just because he thought he would start and I tell him he isn’t.
“Obviously [for] Hendo, in his ear and mind, that meant, ‘okay, he doesn’t want me here’. I understand it 100 per cent but we clarified that.
“What he said is that if I would have told him: ‘Hendo, stay here, you will be the main man in midfield’, Hendo would have stayed, that’s the truth..
“But I couldn’t say that, as much as I wanted him to stay, I couldn’t say that. So that’s why it was better that Hendo moved on. That’s it.
“There’s not a bit of bad blood or whatever. He is the captain of the most successful team this club saw in the Premier League era and rightly so, and he’s a sensational player.
“I wish him only the best and, when he comes here, from my point of view he gets a real farewell, everything. There’s nothing to misunderstand from that point of view, 100 per cent.”