Manchester City legend Yaya Toure has revealed that he had almost join English Premier League club, Chelsea after a successful spell at Barcelona.
The 37-year-old was part of Barcelona’s treble winning squad in 2009, but hardly featured in the Catalans starting XI and thus, thoughts to link up with his compatriots – Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou flooded his mind.
Toure, who is now coach of Ukrainian outfit Olimpik Donetsk, spent eight years at Manchester City after he signed for the side in 2010.
The Ivorian won slew of titles and individual honours during his spell with City, but soon lost his place in the squad when his former boss at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola took over the team.
Toure’s interview with France Football seemed to have destroyed his relationship with Guardiola when he made inflammatory quotes about the Spaniard’s attitude to African players.
“I was close to joining Chelsea,” he said. “Juventus and Inter as well. Chelsea would’ve been easy because they already had a story as a great club. Didier Drogba was there as well.
“City were more demanding, if you understand what I mean? They said they were going to change, they want to be a big club, better than their neighbour.
“Carlos Tevez was a huge figure in that moment but he was quite concerned, when you see players like (Emmanuel) Adebayor, Robinho… City was doing good business but then those players were able to leave. They weren’t adapting well with the club.
“But I was thinking in my mind to get to a club where people can see me. At Barcelona I was surrounded by great players – Xavi, Iniesta, Messi – and that meant people thought it was easy for me to play with them. After I moved to City, people started to realise how capable I was.”
Toure won the African POTY a record four consecutive time and would be remembered for his incredible stats in Manchester City during the 2013/14 Premier League season.
He inspired the team to the Premier League title, with 33 goal contributions in 35 appearances.
