EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea signed £55m Pedro Neto instead of explosive winger now at Man City | OneFootball

Chelsea have today been linked with interest in Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike, and we’re pretty convinced we will make a serious bid for him this summer.

But not long ago, it wasn’t Ekitike but one of his teammates in Germany we were looking at. Sources with knowledge of the situation tell Chelsea News that last summer, the Blues were very interested in Omar Marmoush. They had initial talks with Frankfurt, but walked away after being quoted what they considered an excessive price for a player who was already 25.

In the end, Marmoush had an incredibly prolific 6 months and moved to Manchester City for £59m as part of their emergency winter rebuild, and has already taken to the Premier League nicely. Those upstairs at Chelsea must be kicking themselves that they walked away.

We wrote about interest in him back in December, when City were already closing in. But it was last summer that the Blues actually came closest to signing the explosive wide man.

Chelsea opt for Neto ahead of Marmoush – now the race is on

Omar Marmoush in action for Eintracht Frankfurt (Photo by Neil Baynes/Getty Images

Ultimately the price tag Frankfurt put on the Egyptian’s head ended up being too much, and Chelsea moved on to other targets. It then became clear that Pedro Neto was available, and despite his injury history, his Premier League pedigree was considered enough of a factor to persuade the Blues to spend £55m on him – significantly more than Marmoush would have cost at that point.

They’re similar players in many ways, and Marmoush would have likely been even better at filling in up top than Neto has been while Nicolas Jackson is out injured.

Time will tell whether the sporting directors made the right choice or not in the case of this one who got away.