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Xabi Alonso has insisted that working with good players at Bayer Leverkusen is the secret behind his tremendous success.

The former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder has been a revelation in his first senior management role at Leverkusen, who won their first-ever Bundesliga title last weekend under his stewardship.

And when he was asked to explain the factors behind his success, he deflected praise to his team.

Alonso told TNT Sports: "It's mostly down to having good players and that they know how to adapt to different systems so the systems are not that important.

It's about more our principles and how we are able to go from Union Berlin, for example, one week and then to have Bayern at home [the players] are able to adapt to different circumstances.

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With good players, it's easier."

Alonso's comments are intriguing given that a report from The Telegraph outlined that one of the factors behind Jurgen Klopp's decision to leave Liverpool was the speed at which his new-look team have gelled this season.

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It was claimed Klopp was planning to oversee a transition period after rebuilding in the transfer window but changed his mind with Liverpool's new-look team back in the title picture.

He even alluded to this in his leaving statement, saying: "Last season was kind of a super-difficult season and there were moments when at other clubs probably the decision would have been, 'Come on, thank you very much for everything but probably we should split here, or end it here.' That didn't happen here, obviously.

"For me, it was super, super, super-important that I can help to bring this team back onto the rails.

When I realised pretty early that happened, it was a really good team with massive potential and a super age group, super characters and all that, then I could start thinking about myself again and that was the outcome