I scouted Didier Drogba for Premier League club before he joined Chelsea – then they got relegated

Didier Drogba was scouted by another Premier League club before joining Chelsea.

The striker had even been convinced to join, only for his suitors to be relegated.

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Drogba first joined Chelsea from Marseille in 2004 and went on to have two spells with the club.

Across his two stints at Stamford Bridge, he scored 104 goals in 254 league appearances.

The Ivorian also won 14 trophies, including the Champions League and four league titles.

He also finished as top scorer in the Premier League on two separate occasions.

However, it could have been for a different London club, former scout Paul Montgomery has revealed.

He exclusively told Shaun Custis and Henry Winter on the Sunday Edition that he scouted Drogba for West Ham when he was playing for French side Guingamp.

Montgomery had also been watching fellow future Chelsea star Florent Malouda.

Asked about discovering Drogba, he explained: “I went to watch Malouda and then big man was on the bench.

“Came on for the first game for 20 minutes and I thought ‘oof’, I went back looking at my files.

“I’d seen him at Le Mans once before and had him noted as a ‘keep an eye on’ and because in them days you had your own database.

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“Then I went back to the next game and come on for 30 minutes and then they played Lyon which was the top of the league and I always loved a player at Lyon called Edmilson, who I tried to get to Newcastle with Sam Allardyce later on.

“He was captain of Lyon for four years, then captain of Barcelona for four years and then captain of Brazil.

“He was amazing and I thought I’ll go to that game because they’re playing Guingamp and they were leading 2-0 at halftime.

“Big man comes off the bench second half, scores one, makes one. I thought ‘oh, aye aye’, and I remember going back and travelling back and when you’re someone like me, if you see something like that, that’s different, it’s different.”

Montgomery was even able to convince Drogba to join the Hammers, only for them to be relegated at the end of the 2002/03 season.

Under caretaker manager Trevor Brooking, they finished two points from safety in 18th.

As a result, Drogba instead joined Marseille for just £5million before switching to Chelsea a year later.

The Hammers also missed out on Malouda, who moved to Lyon and then to Chelsea in 2007.