The 23-year-old completed a switch to Spain on transfer deadline day, with Atletico piecing together a package which enticed Ajax into a sale.
Liverpool had also been in the running to secure the Belgium international's signature, but saw their efforts knocked back.
The Reds ended up landing Mamadou Sakho and Tiago Ilori from Paris Saint-Germain and Sporting Lisbon, respectively, but Alderweireld claims the Anfield outfit looked at him before sealing late deals on Monday.
He told the Spanish press following his arrival at Atletico: "The club have been following me now for two or three weeks, and you could see they really wanted me.
"That is why I turned down approaches from other teams. Liverpool, for example, appeared in the last few days, but I had already taken my decision.
"The truth is that Atletico made a huge effort to convince me."
How dumb is this?
It makes it sound as if we wanted him but at the last minute switched our attention to rush through replacements on the last day.
With them all attending the game the deals must have been in place for a good few days before the deadline, contradicting what he said. That is unless we also were trying to buy him on top of them.
edit:
I think he wanted to join liverpool and is just trying to save face as we never followed up on the initial interest.
