Thomas Tuchel confirms Chelsea looked into signing Harry Kane

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has confessed that the Blues met with Harry Kane's representatives to discuss a potential summer move.

Kane lodged a request to leave Spurs this summer and felt chairman Daniel Levy had already promised to sell him, but his £150m price tag proved to be an immediate problem for all suitors. Manchester City battled hardest but had to accept defeat eventually.

As for Chelsea, they turned their attention to Romelu Lukaku, bringing in the Belgian for a cool £97.5m from Inter, but Tuchel has confessed that talks were held over a possible deal for Kane beforehand.

“We never had a list with his name on it and I never went to Marina [Granovskaia] to tell her to buy him,” said Tuchel (via The Telegraph). “But the club sorted out the situation.

"There are many people around players - their agents and advisors and people in between and we had some information from these people, but it was never that close.”

Chelsea baulked at paying the £150m for Kane, whom they felt was too expensive at 28 years old, but City chose to persevere with their interest and Tuchel admitted that he felt Pep Guardiola would get his man eventually.

“I thought that this was going to happen," he said of the proposed move. “No I was not scared, but if it would have happened I would have been very interested in how maybe it would have changed Manchester City’s style of playing. 

“We are not afraid of anyone. We accept any team and Manchester City, Man Utd and Liverpool, they are the teams strong like no other in this league and they have strong squads. These are the guys with whom we want to compete and it’s normal that they fight for the best players and I thought this was maybe going to happen.

Tuchel went on to compare Lukaku and Kane, insisting that the Belgian is the perfect fit for how Chelsea play football.

“I find that Romelu plays a bit higher up the pitch and Harry Kane also likes to drop into number 10 positions, to pockets and turn and to assist," said the boss. "He has a super partnership with Son [Heung-min], so he is very strong in finding space between the lines. I find Romelu up higher in the pitch.  

“But they also have similarities. They love to score and they score whenever they play, they are up for it and it is a certain mindset that you cannot learn. I am pretty sure they both started showing this mindset when they started playing football when they were five, six, seven years old.  

“These guys are born to score goals and if they do not score they are not happy. Harry does everything for his team no matter if he plays for Tottenham or England, he is not shy to work defensively. He does what is needed to do, to defend set pieces and whatever. Romelu is the same, he is here to help us win titles. That is what big players do.”