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Due to a minor technical issue, WAGNH dropped off NewsNow over the weekend. If you’re not familiar with NewsNow, it’s a news-aggregator that’s meant to serve a good purpose, but at least on the football side, it’s basically just a hive of scum and villainy and all rumor clickbait. Everyone’s a big star, everything’s a shock move or a big blow or an unbelievable development. Surprisingly — and this sort of applies to football media at large — the constant sensationalism has not yet been defeated by its own instruments. When everything is special, nothing is special, but that general concept does not seem to apply here. If anything, it’s gotten worse.
In any case, we are now back on NN, and this article should be the first they pick up after our brief hiatus. For a moment, I considered going with the headline “BREAKING: Chelsea sign Robert Lewandowski”.
Alas.
The real story is far less exciting or even interesting. Lewandowski’s a bit miffed that he didn’t win the Bundesliga Golden Boot this season and, at least briefly, blamed his own teammates for it. That’s not a nice move, but strikers are a weird bunch. Still remember Drogba and Lampard almost coming to blows over a penalty kick when Didier was trying to beat Rooney to the individual prize in 2010 — Drogba ended up scoring a hat-trick in that 8-0 win over Wigan on the final day of the season, so it didn’t matter in the end.
“It doesn't hurt anymore, but it did at first. Maybe because I wasn't completely satisfied with the way my team helped me. Immediately after the last game, I felt anger. I was disappointed with my team. That was the feeling I had.”
-Robert Lewandowsi; source: Independent
There’s little reason to think that Lewandowski would quit Bayern over this nonsense, but of course if you’re the agent, you’ll take this opportunity to stir the pot a bit.
“Robert told me that he got no support and that the coach gave no call to help him in the last game to win the top-scorer title. He was disappointed as I have never seen him before. He really hoped that the team [would] support him proactively."
-Maik Barthel; source: Kicker via beIN Sports
This then “alerted” the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Chelsea, three teams who are dealing with changing situations at center forward.
So with everyone on high alert, Polish journalist Maciej Iwanski tweeted some intriguing information he received from a “trusted” source in Madrid.
Enjoy the show @lewy_official w Londynie? Tylko, że jest jeszcze kwestia Bayernu, który (na razie) nie chce sprzedać... pic.twitter.com/3g2idTiZ0T
— Maciej Iwanski (@IwanskiMaciej) June 20, 2017
The screenshot roughly translates to Real giving up on Lewandowski because they want to keep Benzema instead and don’t want to compete against the other interested club. And that other club ... drumroll please ... are none other than Chelsea and Robert is “considering a move to London”, although Mourinho’s interested as well, just as he’s been “for years”.
Given that Lewandowski’s been one of the best strikers in the world for years, teams like Chelsea and United would be silly not to be interested if there’s a possibility that he might leave Bayern. But that possibility is basically non-existent and Maciej himself says that Bayern don’t want to sell. As far Lewandowski actually considering anything, well, no one really knows other than Lewandowski himself.
CORRECTION: Chelsea are indeed interested in Lewandowski (so are Man Utd), but there has been NO CONTACT with Bayern yet. [@IwanskiMaciej]
— Kuba Karpiński (@kuba_karpinski) June 20, 2017
BREAKING: This is nothing more than idle speculation, and it’s highly unlikely to develop into anything more than that.
RE-BREAKING: When in doubt, double down.
To make things clear: Chelsea AND ManUtd are checking on R.Lewandowski. Bayern calm, has the player contract until 2021. RL would choose CFC
— Maciej Iwanski (@IwanskiMaciej) June 20, 2017