Chelsea great Roberto Di Matteo has revealed he tried to sign Timo Werner twice during his time in Germany.
The RB Leipzig forward has scored 32 goals in all competitions this term and was courted by Liverpool before he agreed to move to Stamford Bridge.
Werner will officially join the Blues once the Bundesliga campaign is concluded this weekend and he is set to earn an annual salary of £14million, around £270,000-a-week.
That will make him one of the club's highest earners and Chelsea will also pay the German international £10million for signing with the club.
And Di Matteo has revealed why he is excited to see him in a Blues shirt next season and how the forward first came on to his radar.
“When I was at Schalke he was at Stuttgart and he was just coming on to the scene,” he told Chelsea’s official website.
“During the second part of the season, before I left, I was planning with my sporting director.
“I was saying I wanted to sign this guy, he’s good. He was young, quick, technically good. I said ‘can we not sign this boy Timo’.
“We didn’t in the end and then I resigned and so on. Then I went to Villa. Stuttgart, the season after, they got relegated, and so I enquired again to sign him, but then Leipzig signed him on.”
Before Di Matteo added: “I’m a big fan of his and he’s developed really, really well as well.
"He’s a goal scorer, he scores goals, so he can guarantee a certain amount of goals for the team, which is very good, and he’s very pacey as well, he’s fast.”
