FC Köln goalkeeper Timo Horn has revealed that he’s a bit of an Arsenal fan, while explaining why he turned down the chance to play for Liverpool when they approached him as a teenager.

Speaking to the Independent ahead of Köln’s Europa League meeting with Arsenal on Thursday, Horn had a lot of praise for the Gunners, saying: “I’ve always thought of Arsene Wenger as a fantastic manager.

“I like the football culture in England and Arsenal just had something in my view that the other teams didn’t have. I’ve always enjoyed the style of football they try to employ even if they haven’t won that many titles.”

While clearly having a soft spot for the club from North London, in my opinion, Horn passed up the chance to join another Premier League giant in Liverpool years ago. “At the age of 15 or 16, Liverpool were very interested in me,” he added.

“But I didn’t go there because I felt the goalkeeping schooling in Germany was much better and I had enough examples, for instance Ron-Robert Zieler who came back after a year [at Leicester], and that’s why I stayed in Koln. It definitely wasn’t the wrong decision!”

Horn has made over 160 appearances for the Köln first team, as well as another 29 for Köln II earlier in his career. Normally, I’d have a soft spot of my own for any player who turned down one of Arsenal’s big six rivals and admits to being a fan of the Gunners.

However, you just know that when it’s a goalkeeper, they’re bound to step up and put in a world class performance when they face you.

We saw an example in pre-season, with Arsenal fan Andrew Redmayne putting in a man-of-the-match performance against the Gunners and saving a Danny Welbeck penalty. Hopefully it won’t be the same again on Thursday.