I scouted Didier Drogba for the Premier League club before he joined Chelsea; then they descended

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

They even convinced the striker to join, but his suitors were relegated.

Drug joined for the first time Chelsea of Marseilles in 2004 and spent two seasons at the club.

During his two spells at Stamford Bridge, he scored 104 goals in 254 league games.

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

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

However, it could have been for another London club, revealed former scout Paul Montgomery.

He exclusively told Shaun Custis and Henry Winter in Sunday's edition that he scouted Drogba for West Ham when he played for the French team. Guingamp.

Montgomery had also been keeping an eye on his future Chelsea star, Florent Malouda.

When asked about his discovery of Drogba, he explained: “I went to see Malouda and then the big man was in the dock.

“I got to the first match for 20 minutes and thought ‘ugh’, I looked back at my files.

“I had seen him at Le Mans once before and had him listed as 'watchman' and because in those days you had your own database.

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“Then I came back the next game and came on for 30 minutes and then they played Lyon, who were the best in the league and I always loved a player at Lyon called Edmilson, who I tried to bring to Newcastle with Sam Allardyce later.

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

“It was amazing and I thought I would go to that game because they were playing Guingamp and they were leading 2-0 at half-time.

“The big man comes off the bench in the second half, scores one, makes another. I thought 'oh yeah, yeah,' and I remember going back and traveling 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, but they were relegated at the end of the 2002/03 season.

Under interim coach Trevor Brooking, they finished two points behind 18th-place safety.

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

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