The debate surrounding Haaland and Manchester United is not a new one, and former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has previously opened up about how close the club came to securing his services before his price tag skyrocketed. Solskjaer worked with his compatriot during their time together at Molde and recognized the striker's potential long before the rest of the world caught on.
Solskjaer detailed the timeline of these events, explaining that he made contact with the club as early as 2018. “I had him \[Haaland\] in Molde, for two seasons. The summer before I got here, I rang the club and said, ‘You’ve got to sign this boy. He’ll be top class’. That was June, July 2018, and they said no. They had enough reports on players."
He added: "Then I became the caretaker manager, and we’d sold Haaland to RB Salzburg. I tell the club straight away to buy him while he has a release clause. We knew that then, and no one else would’ve paid the money €20m, it would’ve been a bargain. It was the club’s decision to not go for it then. We never made bids or went in for him, until after he started scoring for Salzburg. By then, Borussia Dortmund were there, Juventus were there, everyone was there. His release clause then was still good - €60m."