Christian Pulisic had a trial at Arsenal as a teenager, before the current Chelsea winger had even moved to Borussia Dortmund.

United States international Christian Pulisic joined Chelsea from Borussia Dortmund for around £58m in January 2019, spending the next six months back with Dortmund on loan before linking up with his new teammates that summer.

After a strong debut season ended with an FA Cup final defeat to Arsenal, Pulisic has somewhat struggled to replicate his late 2019/20 form this campaign. But the 22-year-old could have ended up on the other side of that cup final last season.

According to former Arsenal head of youth recruitment Steve Morrow, Pulisic spent time with the club as a young teenager before joining Dortmund.

“Through our connections in the States, Christian was one that I actually had over at London Colney as a 14-year-old,” Morrow said. “He came in and did quite well, but he was small and underdeveloped physically when he came to us.

“I did see his potential but he was certainly behind physically in terms of the same age group with our boys. I wanted to bring him back again, but it just didn’t work out and he went to Germany unfortunately.”

Pulisic hasn’t really got going this season, scoring five goals and assisting two in 32 appearances. He’s had a couple of injury problems, with his cup-final hamstring injury forcing him to miss the start of the campaign before another muscle injury sidelined him for a month between October and November.

If he gets back to his post-lockdown purple patch with Chelsea, when he directly contributed to nine goals in 11 games, perhaps Arsenal will feel a bit more aggrieved at their failure to land him.