Micah Richards has revealed that Jose Mourinho was interested in signing the defender when he was at Manchester City.
The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager has found himself once again looking for a new job after he was sacked by AS Roma earlier this week.
With the 60-year-old being a main topic of discussion in the media as a result of his latest club departure, one pundit and former City player has shed some light on a previous occasion where Mourinho was eager to sign him.
Richards says Mourinho wanted to sign him for Chelsea
Speaking in a recent edition of The Rest Is Football, Richards had this to say about the interest Mourinho had in him.
He said: “Apparently he tried to sign me as well when I was at Man City. It was around the season of 2006/2007 I would say. I was playing for England and Man United were interested and Chelsea were interested and I was just basically [thinking] ‘I’ve got a chance to play for Mourinho.’
“You go to bed at night and think and you look at houses in London. There were enquiries made, it was all done by the book, agents speaking to agents.
“Man City were saying they wanted £20m for me at the time and I’d only played one season, it was a good season by the way.
“I never really wanted to leave Man City in the end because it was my home. I was there, there was a couple of youngsters, Michael Johnson, Daniel Sturridge, Nedum Onuoha, Ishmael Miller, Stephen Ireland was all a group.
“I wanted to stay at Man City but when I knew that he was potentially interested in me, it was a nice feeling.”
After working his way through City’s youth ranks, Richards went on to make 246 senior appearances for the Manchester club across all competitions before leaving in 2015 on a free transfer to Aston Villa.
Looking back over the 2006/07 season, the 35-year-old featured in 34 games across all competitions, which shows how important he was for the team at that time.
Bearing in mind how successful Mourinho was during his first spell in charge of Chelsea, it’s understandable why Richards would have been excited by the idea of playing under him at the west London club.
However, with the right-back then going on to be part of the City squad that won their first trophy in over 30 years and their first Premier League title, it seems that Richards made the right decision to stay where he was.
