LONDON - Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba has said he felt disgusted with himself when he left French club Olympique Marseille for big-spending Chelsea in July 2004.

LONDON - Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba has said he felt disgusted with himself when he left French club Olympique Marseille for big-spending Chelsea in July 2004.

"The day I signed for Chelsea I just felt disgusted," he was quoted as saying in British newspaper The Sun on Saturday, which sourced the comments to Drogba's official DVD on sale in France.

Drogba said he had been so keen to stay at Marseille that he wanted to fail his medical with the Premier League club.

"The medical was in a Paris hospital and I remember praying they would find a problem with my knee or something so the move would collapse," he said.

"I wasn't interested in the money I'd make, I simply didn't want to leave Marseille. I wanted to stay with Marseille until the end of my career."

Jose Mourinho was the coach when Drogba joined Chelsea and the striker did not take long to declare his unhappiness after the Portuguese left the London club in September, to be replaced by Israeli Avram Grant.

"I want to leave Chelsea. Something is broken with the club," Drogba told France Football magazine in October.

"I made the mistake of allowing too much of an emotional attachment in my relations with the coach."

Drogba later said he regretted saying he wanted to leave Chelsea. - Reuters