Man City wanted Lukaku but striker dreamed of Chelsea or Real Madrid move

Stefan Bienkowski

• 28 Oct 2021 15:02 CDT
• 5 min read

Romelu Lukaku’s agent has revealed that the player almost joined Manchester City last year but had always harboured hopes of playing for two clubs after he left Inter: former side Chelsea and Real Madrid.

Lukaku joined Chelsea at the age of 18 and came through the club’s youth ranks, before eventually moving to Everton in 2014.

Trending

Liverpool star to permanently replace Mbappe as France captain

Premier League managers: Full list of current bosses

Which football managers have been sacked this season?

The towering striker ended up at Inter in 2019, where he spent two years helping the club return to the top of Italian football before Chelsea once again signed him for a club-record fee of £97.5 million.

However, the player’s agent has now revealed that Lukaku always had high hopes of returning to Chelsea one day, or indeed moving on to Madrid and testing himself in Spain.

How Lukaku ended up back at Chelsea

“I think I can say without disappointing anybody that Manchester City came in the year before,” said Federico Pastorello in an interview with the Telegraph.

“During the pandemic, it was very complicated because of trying to fly to places to meet people. It started very concrete and very serious, but eventually they changed their idea or they were not ready to make it happen.

“Honestly, it was very difficult after the first year - it was almost impossible. He hadn’t won the league with Inter and he wanted to do that, and it would have been really impossible. Then they [City] focussed on Harry Kane this summer.

“Romelu was incredibly happy in Milan, he loves the supporters, he loves the city, he loves the club. But, on the other side, he was always dreaming of coming back to Chelsea.

“I knew this in 2017, he said there were two clubs that were his dream - Chelsea and Real Madrid, and Chelsea was even more because he had been sold much too early and not in a very nice way after the penalty in the Super Cup, so he felt there was something he had not achieved and he wanted to put it right.”