Transfers you were genuinely gutted we missed out on

Many say Ronaldinho but imo in a hindsight if we did sign him we didn't have a place for Ronaldo to become what he was.

For me it's Modric. Such a player and would be our midfield for a decade.
 
Shearer. Andy Cole had been excellent with us but Shearer was just another level.

Sneijder. A genuine Ballon d'Or player at that time. Those Inter treble and World Cup shows. Almost as good as Kagawa.
 
Hazard. That was the "value in the market" Glazer time and the point we began to fall behind.
 
Strelok said:
Many say Ronaldinho but imo in a hindsight if we did sign him we didn't have a place for Ronaldo to become what he was.

For me it's Modric. Such a player and would be our midfield for a decade.
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Why fergie didnt sign modric when he was at spurs is baffling.

Peak Ronaldinho in PL would have been the greatest and most entertaining player to play in the PL. Shame it didnt happen.
 
NWRed said:
Summer of '98 we were linked with Kluivert all summer but he signed for Barca and we signed Yorke instead. I was properly gutted at the time, shows what I know about football.
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Was here to post this, more or less
 
Recently, Camavinga and Endrick to Real and Pedri to Barca. Knowing that these absolute wonderkids were available for reasonable prices, but because they only wanted the Spanish big two we just had to watch helplessly as they transferred for a fraction of what a lesser talent like Bellingham would cost.

Ronaldinho is cropping up a lot in this thread but I think he was to Barca what Cantona was to us in the sense that he just fit the club like a glove and it would never have worked out any way near as well for him had it not been that particular club at at that particular time.
 
Strelok said:
Many say Ronaldinho but imo in a hindsight if we did sign him we didn't have a place for Ronaldo to become what he was.

For me it's Modric. Such a player and would be our midfield for a decade.
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Yeah, no exaggeration to say our entire post-Fergie wilderness decade is different if we get Modric. Not a dominant team probably, but not a disaster. If it's true we chose Kagawa over him, I can understand why they thought Kagawa-Rooney would tear teams apart after watching Kagawa-Lewandowski tear apart Bayern and sort of look like a 2010s Beardsley-Cole, but we should have just signed both, Modric could clearly play deep in a dominant team, and Kagawa would have been a logical sub #10 and play them both when we're at home or the much better team.
 
Modric.

But Levy was pissed off due to Berbatov and Carrick.

The perfect Scholes replacement.
 
dinostar77 said:
Why fergie didnt sign modric when he was at spurs is baffling.

Peak Ronaldinho in PL would have been the greatest and most entertaining player to play in the PL. Shame it didnt happen.
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Rio said we didn't buy him because we already agreed a deal for Kagawa back then.
NoPace said:
Yeah, no exaggeration to say our entire post-Fergie wilderness decade is different if we get Modric. Not a dominant team probably, but not a disaster. If it's true we chose Kagawa over him, I can understand why they thought Kagawa-Rooney would tear teams apart after watching Kagawa-Lewandowski tear apart Bayern and sort of look like a 2010s Beardsley-Cole, but we should have just signed both, Modric could clearly play deep in a dominant team, and Kagawa would have been a logical sub #10 and play them both when we're at home or the much better team.
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Agree. Anyway in a hindsight Modric might be pretty happy we didn't buy him :D
 
Bake when he left spurs
Modric when he left spurs
Hazard when he went to Chelsea
Shearer when he went to Blackburn and Newcastle
Sanchez when he went to Barca
 
Batistuta. The United of the time with Batistuta upfront would have been on cheat mode.
 
Weren’t we supposed to be close to getting Zidane when he left Auxerre? SAF chose Cantona over him?
 
David Ginola (1995)

Didier Drogba ( Momo Sylla’s best friend told him he would struggle to get a game because of Henrik and Chris)
 
Batigol... Especially since he was my favourite player outside of United. The reason why I still have a soft spot for Viola
 
whitbyviking said:
Weren’t we supposed to be close to getting Zidane when he left Auxerre? SAF chose Cantona over him?
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Unlikely considering her never played for Auxerre and didn’t go to Juve until 1996.

Might be true if we looked at him before he joined Bordeaux but I am/was not aware of any rumours about him so young in his career
 
With Modric, wasn't it a case of Tottenham essentially refusing to sell him (for anything under a wildly inflated price) to Premier League teams?
Chelsea had an offer knocked back around that same period of 45m, and I don't think it was just the London rival dimension (added to that, Levy's still reluctant to deal with United after the Berbatov affair, which is going to make any potential Kane deal particularly difficult unless new owners are set on him as a real inaugural statement signing).

Similarly, apparently an offer was accepted for Bale, but only at around 18-20m more than Madrid paid -if it had been SAF still as manager instead of Moyes, maybe that could have swung it....

The ones who are really disappointing are those where the player was clearly interested and even Glazer parsimony shouldn't have seen us lose out, but got highjacked by administrative incompetence in terms of negotiating or pulling the trigger - Caicedo, Haaland when still in Norway (and then again at Salzburg to some extent -if they had faith in the project, why not accept the release clause and gamble on being in a position to renegotiate in a year to raise it significantly).

I think Kendry Paez is going to be another akin to the above - already playing men's football and with excellent awareness/technical attributes, and even with the hype, he's not going to be hugely expensive when buying/offering compensation at his age, Chelsea are in major flux and can't sincerely claim that Potter's likely to be in post come 2 years down the line when Paez is able to officially move or what the project is going to look like, whilst with ETH we're virtually guaranteed to be challenging, to be rationally integrating players into the team and with a defined pattern of play, Paez can expect top-level targeted coaching etc...
 
MC89 said:
David Ginola (1995)

Didier Drogba ( Momo Sylla’s best friend told him he would struggle to get a game because of Henrik and Chris)
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Wasn't Ginola in the boardroom about to sign on the dotted line and someone said they were concerned he wouldn't like playing at the likes of St Mirren away etc and he promptly left and signed for Newcastle?
 
Shearer,
essien (thought he was a cert after his champions league interview where his fav stadium was OT, fav player Scholes all has my hopes up),
then I knew a fella worked for united was involved in showing torres around during the club tour- he said put your mortgage on him, he's definitely coming....glad I didn't.
 
Ronaldinho was gutting, and ultimately cost Kenyon his job.
Essien to Chelsea, he would have won the Ballon D'or if it wasn't for that knee injury.
Hazard to Chelsea, seems like we courted him for a while and in the end he decided to go to Chelsea after they won the CL.
Not really one we missed out on but Tevez to City was annoying because he offered something different than Berbatov who was probably 4th choice during that time.
Modric and Bale, who we'd all have probably swapped for both Berbatov and Carrick if given the opportunity.
Gascoigne would have been a great player under Fergie.
Pretty sure we missed out on Silva, Kompany and Aguero due to Glazernomics and allowed City to get a grip on the league.
Kroos, who the feck knows what Moyes, LVG or whoever the feck it was that canceled this move.
De Ligt would have been a great signing, especially in our team now.
Benzema when he was leaving Lyon. I remember Fergie waiting for him after the CL game with a signed United shirt and everything.

Some I'm glad we missed out on:
Jon Obi Mikel
Nunez
Gakpo
Ramsey
Sneijder
Fabregas (from Barca)
Gaitan
Baines
Perisic
Dybala
Jordan Henderson
 
crossy1686 said:
Ronaldinho was gutting, and ultimately cost Kenyon his job.
Essien to Chelsea, he would have won the Ballon D'or if it wasn't for that knee injury.
Hazard to Chelsea, seems like we courted him for a while and in the end he decided to go to Chelsea after they won the CL.
Not really one we missed out on but Tevez to City was annoying because he offered something different than Berbatov who was probably 4th choice during that time.
Modric and Bale, who we'd all have probably swapped for both Berbatov and Carrick if given the opportunity.
Gascoigne would have been a great player under Fergie.
Pretty sure we missed out on Silva, Kompany and Aguero due to Glazernomics and allowed City to get a grip on the league.
Kroos, who the feck knows what Moyes, LVG or whoever the feck it was that canceled this move.
De Ligt would have been a great signing, especially in our team now.
Benzema when he was leaving Lyon. I remember Fergie waiting for him after the CL game with a signed United shirt and everything.

Some I'm glad we missed out on:
Jon Obi Mikel
Nunez
Gakpo
Ramsey
Sneijder
Fabregas (from Barca)
Gaitan
Baines
Perisic
Dybala
Jordan Henderson
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I seem to remember, false or otherwise, that we were linked a lot with Kompany. He would have been an outstanding signing.
 
Shearer and Ronaldinho

We'd have won the champions league at least once or twice in 97 and 98 with Shearer.
 
whitbyviking said:
I seem to remember, false or otherwise, that we were linked a lot with Kompany. He would have been an outstanding signing.
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We were in for him and Vanden Borre after they broke into the Belgium team around the age of 16/17 I remember. We tracked them for a few years and then he ultimately joined City once we firmed up our interest.

Same for Aguero, we made an offer and City offered more. We refused to pay it on principal.
 
Robben was a big one at the time because he was so good in the Football Manager games and it looked like he was set for us, he would have been perfect for us too in the post Beckham era with Robben on the right and Ronaldo on the left.

John Obi Mikel is one that hurt because Chelsea were our main rivals and although I'd never seen him play he was hyped up to be the player Yaya Toure became. I remember even telling my mate at school that his family was kidnapped by the Russian mafia and was forced to sign with Chelsea, I can't be the only one who heard that rumour.

Letting Tevez go was a big one the other way, not because he went to City, I was actually pleased that he got the big move just wanted him to stay. Post 2008 Champions League we signed Berbatov and Tevez became a squad player, Berba was definitely more prettier on the eye but as a team I don't think he was suited to us at the time. We had the holy trinity and the squad needed investment, but up top we were fine. A Tevez - Rooney partnership for 5+ years would have been epic.
 
Ronaldinho was the first transfer 'saga' that I remember following and feeling gutted we missed out on.

I miss the days of refreshing teletext and finding out we signed Nani and Anderson rather than 12 months of speculation
 
Jamesy18 said:
Ronaldinho was the first transfer 'saga' that I remember following and feeling gutted we missed out on.

I miss the days of refreshing teletext and finding out we signed Nani and Anderson rather than 12 months of speculation
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Same for me, just checking the sports news on teletext before going to sleep and we've just signed 2 players from Portugal.

The way they described Anderson led me to believe that we just got the new Ronaldinho.
 
Miguel Ángel Nadal

Remember there was a lot of talk that Fergie was after him. He was a real class act.
 
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