Tottenham and Manchester City made bids for Podolski

(GETTY IMAGES)

Manchester City and Tottenham both made offers for Bayern Munich striker Lukas Podolski last summer, according to the club's general manager Uli Hoeness.

The Germany international recently agreed a transfer to former club Cologne, whom he will join in the summer for around 10 million euros.

But Hoeness claims Bayern have let the player go on the cheap and could have earned more from selling Podolski to a Premier League club.

"Ten million euros are not his true market value. He is worth a lot more," he said.

"Six months ago we had offers of over 20 million euros from Manchester City and Tottenham.

"I think that he is currently worth between 15 and 18 million."

Podolski, though, always expressed his preference for a return to Cologne, and Hoeness feels the frontman's attachment to his home-town club contributed to him failing to establish a first-team place in three years at Bayern.

"His heart never left Cologne," Hoeness said. "He only left with his brain telling him he had to leave the second division.

"It started off when he was looking for a flat in Munich. Such a young lad with a pretty wife should move into the city, to (the fashionable district of) Schwabing, not 30 miles away at the Ammersee lake where you cannot get to know the city and its people at all."

Hoeness feels Podolski will need more than heart to succeed back at Cologne, where the weight of expectation will be even greater than it was when he joined Bayern.

"The biggest danger is the expectations in Cologne," he told Cologne's Express newspaper.

"Nobody can come to terms with that. (Former Germany and Bayern midfielder) Sebastian Deisler ended his career because he could not cope with the pressure.

"I am not linking the two because Deisler had an illness (he suffered from depression). Things are different for Podolski."