Former Chelsea technical director Michael Emenalo admitted he missed out on signing a player who became a Premier League icon with 184 goals.
Sergio Aguero is now a Manchester City star, famous for his legendary goal that won his club their first-ever Premier League title in 2012 – but things could have been very different if the Blues boss had had his way.
2
Aguero caught Chelsea’s attention during a Champions League match in November 2009, when Chelsea traveled to Madrid to face Atletico.
The Argentine came on as a substitute in the 54th minute and opened the scoring with a spectacular volley that Petr Cech could barely parry.
Didier Drogba then scored a brace and it looked like the Blues would escape with three points until Aguero scored again in stoppage time to earn a point for Los Colchoneros in a 2-2 draw.
Read more in the Premier League
Speaking on Mikel John Obi’s podcast about the best players he has signed, Emenalo revealed that he narrowly missed out on bringing Aguero to Stamford Bridge before eventually moving to City.
He replied: “Sergio Aguero. We came very close. He was 20 and the idea was to pair him with Didier Drogba and gradually let him get out of Didier. We assumed Didier would get 35, 36.”
The deal did not flourish and in 2011 Aguero moved to Manchester City and scored 23 goals in the league.
Including arguably the best Premier League moment of all time, when he scored the winning goal against QPR on the final day of the season and beat rivals Manchester United for the title on goal difference.
Aguero won five Premier League titles and received the Golden Boot (26 points) for the 2014/15 season. This season in the top flight he averaged 1.03 goal contributions per game.
He is also Man City’s all-time top goalscorer with 260 goals and leads the league with the most hat-tricks of all time with 12, ahead of Alan Shearer who played 166 more games.
In an interview with YouTube channel The Club, the striker said about the possible move to Chelsea: “After that game, maybe two months later, my agent said to me: ‘Chelsea are interested’.
2
“I was only at Atlético Madrid for three years. I mean, I loved the Premier League, playing there, but Chelsea weren’t interested after that.
“I spoke to Frank Lampard about it because Frank Lampard played at Manchester City. He said that when I played against him he told the Chelsea staff to sign Aguero.”
Former Chelsea player Joe Cole previously expressed his admiration for Aguero.
“You know, as a player, I played against him and I thought ‘Wow.’ He competed against JT [John Terry] and Ricardo Carvalho and was simply outstanding.”
He told TNT Sport: “Chelsea actually neglected him because of his form, which obviously looking back at the time was a big mistake.”