The move that never quite made sense

Scott Sinclair was one of the hottest names in English football in the summer of 2012. Fresh off a stunning two-year stint at Swansea City, where he scored 36 goals in 91 appearances, the winger had half the Premier League circling. Manchester City got their man for £8million, but it turns out the story might have had a very different ending.

Liverpool were in the running for Sinclair's signature at the time, with Brendan Rodgers having just been appointed as manager after his hugely impressive work with the winger at Swansea. It was a natural fit that never happened. Sinclair spoke to Seven, powered by Ladbrokes, and was refreshingly honest about where things went wrong and what might have been.

What Sinclair said about the Liverpool interest

"The first time I heard about the Man City interest was when I was playing for Team GB at London 2012," Sinclair explained. "Obviously there was talk about other clubs as well, but not a lot materialised, really. Even Liverpool came in for me at the time, and so that was another discussion I had with my agent. Looking back, maybe that would have been a better move for me, with their wide players. But yeah, Man City come in and I couldn't really say no."

It is the kind of candid reflection you rarely get from footballers while they are still playing, and Sinclair, who retired at the end of the 2024/25 season after three years with Bristol Rovers, clearly has the distance now to speak plainly. City offered the glamour and the prestige, and that was impossible to turn down in the moment. The problem was what came after.

With David Silva, Samir Nasri and James Milner ahead of him in the pecking order, Sinclair managed just 19 appearances during his time at the Etihad. He described the transition from being Swansea's talisman to a squad player as jarring. "I think I started against Arsenal and Stoke and that was it for me," he said. "I was in such a good place, and then the City move just sort of stops things, and puts everything on hold, then I've got to rebuild again."

What it might have meant at Anfield

Whether Sinclair would have flourished under Rodgers at Liverpool is one of those pleasant footballing hypotheticals that we will never be able to answer with any certainty. What is clear is that Sinclair himself believes the setup at Liverpool might have suited him better, pointing specifically to the way the club used wide players. For a winger who had just terrorised Championship defences and then earned his Premier League stripes, regular football was everything, and that is precisely what City could not offer him.

He left the Etihad in 2015 for Aston Villa before joining Celtic a year later, where he enjoyed a genuinely trophy-laden four seasons in Scotland. A return to England followed with Preston North End and then Bristol Rovers, where he eventually called time on his career. Not a bad life in football by any measure, but the City chapter remained the one that got away from him rather than the one that defined him.

The backdrop to Liverpool's next meeting with City

The timing of Sinclair's comments adds an extra layer of colour to the story. Liverpool are set to host Manchester City in the Premier League next week, a fixture that carries considerable weight given that City were recently found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges levelled against them by the Premier League. It will be the first match Enzo Maresca's side plays since that verdict landed.

For now, Sinclair's reflections serve as a gentle reminder that the biggest move is not always the right one, and that sometimes the road not taken turns out to be the more interesting story. Sunday cannot come soon enough.