Chelsea are the latest Premier League club reported to be chasing Germany forward Thomas Mueller, but as far as Bayern Munich are concerned their vital star is ‘irreplacable’.
According to UK media reports, Jose Mourinho’s Blues want to sign Mueller to replace Diego Costa, hardly surprising given the German’s current goal-scoring prowess.
Mueller netted Bayern’s opener in Saturday’s 2-0 win at home to Hertha Berlin to claim his 13th league goal, just four months into the season.
It means he has scored in each of his last five competitive outings, taking his astonishing personal haul to 20 goals in 21 outings in all competitions in 2015/16.
In a single season, he has never scored more than his current tally of 13 Bundesliga goals — which has come after only 14 matches.
Still just 26, Mueller already has a World Cup winners medal in his collection and can play on the wing or as a striker, as he proved by scoring a hat-trick against Portugal at the 2014 World Cup.
Bayern have tied Mueller up with a contract until June 2019 and he has an estimated market value of €75 million, but the sky’s the limit in terms of what a Premier League club would potentially have to pay for him.
“Thomas Mueller embodies everything which distinguishes FC Bayern Munich,” enthused the club’s director of sport Matthias Sammer.
“He is an absolute role model, an absolute gem and he’s irreplaceable.”
Mueller is not your typical footballer, who tends to be more interested in fast cars and supermodel girlfriends.
Mueller got married shortly after his 20th birthday in November 2009, his wife Lisa is a successful equestrian rider and at the last count, the couple have seven horses. Mueller has even tried his hand at horse breeding.
He insists he is just an average guy and his name is so typically German that 700 000 countrymen share the same combination, except the Bayern Star has nearly nine million followers on Facebook.
The joker of the team, whether playing for Germany or Bayern, Mueller is more likely to be seen pulling a face or pranking a team-mate than boarding the team bus wearing the trademark oversized headphones most footballers prefer.
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