Hi there, I'm Adam Leventhal and welcome to this special bonus podcast.

We have assembled three of our writers to bring you the inside story of how Chelsea have landed

Timo Verna from Bundesliga side, R.B. Leipzig, so long, a transfer target for Liverpool, of course.

I'm joined by the Athletics Football Correspondent David Ornstein,

our German football writer, Raffer Honestine,

and Liam Toomey, who covers Chelsea for us.

Jens, thanks very much for coming on board.

Liam, David, Raffer, they've contributed to an

incredibly detailed piece on this Werner's story that you can read right now on The Athletic. And if

you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up and take advantage of a 30-day free trial by going

to theathletic.com forward slash Ornstein and Chapman to enjoy the best football writing anywhere, just as the season makes its return.

David, I wanted to start with you. So it looked like Plan A was Liverpool. Plan B was stay at R.B. Leipzig. When did Plan C, fittingly Chelsea, come into play then?

It's been quite a tale, hasn't it? And the first thing to say is it's not quite done yet.

There's still some details that need to be worked through in the coming days, primarily Timurner's

contract, because this has developed so quickly over the last few days.

It really started to gather pace from what I understand on sort of Thursday and Friday of last week.

And then a week on from then, the story broke that Timo Verna had agreed to the move.

Chelsea was the club willing to pay the buyout clause in his contract and so things have

escalated very rapidly. Project A was Liverpool indeed because it was Timo Werner's

preference and dream to join Liverpool and work under Juergen Klopp. The pair met in Berlin

at the end of February a few weeks before the lockdown.

And then they spoke again in around Easter time.

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