Manchester United enjoyed incredible success during Sir Alex Ferguson’s 27-year spell as manager, but one player never got a chance to play a part.
Ferguson’s tenure at Old Trafford became famous for many things, including winning, trusting young players, and the infamous hairdryer treatment.
As a manager who won 13 Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues, Ferguson tended to get his way. If he wanted something, United chiefs made sure he got it.
However, one player who was at the top of his transfer wishlist never ended up pulling on the famous red shirt at Old Trafford.
David Hirst was one of the best strikers around in the early 90s, so much so that Ferguson tried to sign him six times without success.
The Sheffield Wednesday striker scored 18 goals in 33 top flight appearances in 1991/22, and Ferguson was eager to bring him to United ahead of the inaugural Premier League season.
The move never happened though, with then Sheffield Wednesday boss Trevor Francis refusing to sell.
“I’d been talking to Alex Ferguson for a couple of weeks and I was going to Man United,” Hirst previously said in an interview with the Mail.
“A fax was sent with an offer of £4.5million and I was expecting Trevor to say: ‘Man United, £4.5million, away you go’. But he said, ‘I’m not selling you’.
“One thing I never did in my career was knock on the manager’s door because I’m not in the team or I want more money. If you’re not happy with the contract, don’t sign it.
“If you’re not in the team, go out on the training ground and do your best. It’s no good knocking on the door telling him what a good player you are if you’ve not been doing it. I never had a problem with that
Sitting here now, I should’ve banged the door down. It’s orchestrated now and if Man United are interested your agent will get you there by hook or by crook.
“Financially, it wouldn’t have been much different. We weren’t on £50,000 a week then. We were all on pretty much the same
“I was playing for Sheffield Wednesday, third in the league, in Europe, cup finals, good wages, but a Man United player comes with a different tag. It is the one thing I regret.
Hirst – who scored 106 goals in 294 games for the Owls – left Wednesday in 1997 for Southampton. Meanwhile, strikers including Eric Cantona, Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Dwight Yorke led United in an era of dominance.
Topics: Eric Cantona, Manchester United, Manchester United Transfer News & Rumours, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Sheffield Wednesday, Sir Alex Ferguson, Football
“If you’re not in the team, go out on the training ground and do your best. It’s no good knocking on the door telling him what a good player you are if you’ve not been doing it. I never had a problem with that
Sitting here now, I should’ve banged the door down. It’s orchestrated now and if Man United are interested your agent will get you there by hook or by crook.
“Financially, it wouldn’t have been much different. We weren’t on £50,000 a week then. We were all on pretty much the same
“I was playing for Sheffield Wednesday, third in the league, in Europe, cup finals, good wages, but a Man United player comes with a different tag. It is the one thing I regret.
Hirst – who scored 106 goals in 294 games for the Owls – left Wednesday in 1997 for Southampton. Meanwhile, strikers including Eric Cantona, Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Dwight Yorke led United in an era of dominance.
Topics: Eric Cantona, Manchester United, Manchester United Transfer News & Rumours, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Sheffield Wednesday, Sir Alex Ferguson, Football
Speaking to Manchester United’s official website, Brown picked out an incident in 2002 during a Champions League defeat to Zalaegerszeg, where the now-43-year-old made a tackle that resulted in a broken ankle and a long spell on the sidelines.
“I won’t change anything,” he began. “Actually, there’s only one thing I would change. I injured myself in the Champions League qualifying game one year, I broke my ankle.
“Basically, me and this guy went for a tackle but the ball was already out of play. But we both did it anyway and I broke my ankle by doing it, which set me back again for a while. So, except for that, I wouldn’t change anything and I don’t think I can really change the injuries as well because, obviously, that gives you a mental strength to go again when you come back next time.”
Brown recovered and went onto win several trophies under Sir Alex Ferguson at the club.
After retiring in 2018, Brown ended up declaring bankruptcy in April this year over a six-figure debt to HM Revenue & Customs.
Bad investments, coupled with trying to mirror the lifestyle of team-mates on exorbitant wages, was a key contributor to his financial demise.
He’s believed to be on the way back up, however, though may not get near his £50,000-a-week lifestyle he enjoyed while on the books at United.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did not win any silverware as Manchester United manager, although he did do something few others have managed: get an apology out of Sir Alex Ferguson.
Solskjaer’s tenure as United boss started like a fairytale, with 14 wins in his 19 games in charge as caretaker manager earning him the job on a permanent basis.
The legendary striker was fast becoming a legendary coach, and in 2021 he guided United to the final of the Europa League.
However, as time went on, Solskjaer’s tactical naivety started to become more apparent. After a dramatic dip in performances at the start of the 2021/22 season, the Norwegian coach was dismissed.
Coaching is not easy, especially when you are as emotionally tied-up with a club to the extent that Solskjaer is with United.
The last thing a coach needs is to be given advice by former coaches and club legends, especially when the topic of discussion is team selection.
That’s exactly what happened in 2021 though, when Solskjaer decided to bench returning club legend Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo returned to Old Trafford in dramatic circumstances in the summer of 2021, as he looked set to join neighbours Manchester City.
The Portuguese star enjoyed a successful campaign, scoring 18 goals in 30 league appearances, but occasionally, Solskjaer felt his side would be better served with a different attacking option.
On one such occasion, Solskjaer’s former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson publicly questioned his decision, but promptly apologised for doing so.
“That’s the one time Sir Alex has ever apologised to me,” Solskjaer told fans at an event at Manchester’s Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel this week.
“He was caught on a video saying, ‘You should always play your best players,’ after Ronaldo started on the bench for one game. He [Ferguson] rang me and apologised because he knows how difficult it is.”
That match was likely the 1-1 draw with Everton on 2 October, 2021, when Solskjaer started Edinson Cavani over Ronaldo.
Given how Ronaldo’s performances nose-dived the following season and the way he forced his way out of the club, perhaps Solskjaer saw that trouble was brewing before anybody else.
28 years ago, at Selhurst Park, Eric Cantona infamously kung-fu kicked a Crystal Palace fan, who was hurling abuse his way after the Manchester United star was sent off.
And one of his teammates on that night, Lee Sharpe, has hilariously recalled the scene in the dressing room following the 1-1 draw.
Even though he had stepped out of line, Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t give his talisman the hairdryer treatment.
Instead, he went after the likes of Sharpe himself, Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Gary Pallister.
Speaking in a video, Sharpe said: “There’s benches in the middle of the room with shirts and balls to be signed.
“Cups of tea and plates of sandwiches. They’re sent fucking flying everywhere.
“We’re getting scalded and getting egg sandwiches down the back of our necks. We look at each other, thinking, ‘F**king hell, Cantona is getting it here!'”
He added: “And then he starts, the manager. F**king Pallister, you can’t head anything, you can’t tackle. Incey, where the f**k have you been? Sharpey, my grandmother runs f**king faster than you! … You’re all a f**king disgrace.
“Nine o’clock, tomorrow morning, I’m going to run your f**king balls off in training. F**king shocking. And Eric… you can’t go round doing things like that son’.”
Cantona was subsequently banned for nine months and Man United went on to lose the title to Blackburn Rovers on the final day.
The Frenchman, though, made his return in triumphant fashion the following season by scoring a penalty against Liverpool at Old Trafford and earning a draw against their fierce rivals.
He was only a Man United player for five seasons and retired from the game at the age of 30, but he’s still absolutely adored by the red half of Manchester, having scored 80 goals for the club, producing endless amounts of individual brilliance as well as lifting four Premier League titles
Birmingham City’s former CEO Xuandong Ren laid bare how Manchester United and Chelsea both failed to sign Jude Bellingham in 2020.
The 19-year-old is currently the most sought-after midfielder in world footballer, with Premier League trio United, Manchester City and Liverpool all thought to be in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, on the continent, La Liga giants Real Madrid and oil-rich Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain are also believed to be keen.
Bellingham is likely to be subject to a bidding war next summer, though the teenager should be unfazed by the attention, having gone through a similar ordeal in 2020 when he moved from Birmingham City to Borussia Dortmund.
Then the likes of Chelsea, United and Bayern Munch all made attempts to sign the midfielder, but to no avail.
Man Utd’s attempts to convince Bellingham
United were very interested in signing Bellingham in 2020, even offering the player a tour of their Carrington training Ground.
And the former Birmingham CEO Ren has opened up about other tactics employed by the Manchester club to lure the youngster to Old Trafford.
Ren, who headed up the Blues from 2017 to 2020, told Mundo Deportivo that United offered twice as much as the other interested parties.
Meanwhile club legends Sir Alex Ferguson, Eric Cantona and then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reportedly all had a go at trying to convince the star of the merits of a United move.
Ren claimed: “Ed Woodward (then United CEO) was the most insistent. We sat down and talked about how we could convince Bellingham. But Jude didn’t make any decisions based on money.
“They offered a lot more salary compared to the rest…Double. He was going to have guaranteed millions in the bank and he didn’t take them.
“That’s not normal for a player at all. He sat down with Solskjaer, until Woodward brought Ferguson that day, another day to Cantona, to try to convince him.”
Chelsea and Bayern tried to sign Bellingham
Meanwhile, Chelsea and Bayern were also scrambling for the player’s signature, though Blues legend and then-manager Frank Lampard “did not convince him either”.
Ren also opened up about Bayern’s pursuit of the player, claiming: “Until the last day, when he was going to sign with Dortmund, I received a call from his father asking me to wait to sign the transfer.
“Bayern were trying to raise the offer at the last minute. They offered a lot of money as a bonus to the player.
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