Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers admits his close friendship with Jose Mourinho is over due to their rivalry with Chelsea. The teams clash at Anfield on Tuesday night in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final with a place at Wembley at stake.

Rodgers said: "I have a huge respect for him. He is a wonderful man and coach. But you are so engrossed in your own work, you don't communicate as much, you don't have the conversations you had before and, ultimately, you could be a rival. The opportunity to work with him in that period of three and a bit years was invaluable to me.

"Hopefully, in some ways, I helped him as well because we had a lot of communication."