Chelsea striker Timo Werner ‘originally wanted to join Manchester United‘ before signing for the Blues in July last year.
That’s according to BILD, who cover documents obtained by Der Spiegel that reveal a contract offer from Old Trafford for the German forward.
Werner arrived at Stamford Bridge in a £47.7m deal from RB Leipzig last summer, having established himself as one of the star players in the Bundesliga over the last few years.
His goalscoring exploits had earned him admiring glances from around Europe, particularly in the Premier League, where the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United had regularly been linked with a move over the last few years.
They refer to recent document leaks in Der Spiegel, which state that Chelsea were not the striker’s ‘first choice’.
He actually wanted to join United and referred to them as his ‘favourite’ in WhatsApp messages with his advisor Murat Lokurlu. Chelsea are described as ‘super alternatives’.
By November 2019, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool were ‘in the running’ for him, but it was the former who made the first real proposal.
According to the information, they sent a proposal to his agent on WhatsApp that made it clear they would offer him a salary ‘just under €15m’. His agent replied, ‘we’ll see’ to this message.
Ultimately the move didn’t come off, though, as Werner elected to go to Chelsea instead and signed a five-year deal with them.
There’s no mention of why that was the case, but we’ll assume they offered more money and probably matched RB Leipzig’s demands to get the deal for the striker over the line.
