He might be the greatest football manager of all time, but even the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson made the odd howler in the transfer market.
The Scot certainly had more hits than misses during his extraordinary 26-year spell in charge of the Red Devils.
Signing Peter Schmeichel, one of the greatest goalkeepers in football history, for £750,000 from Brondby; Eric Cantona for £1.2 million from Leeds; Cristiano Ronaldo for £12.25 million from Sporting; Roy Keane for £3.75 million from Nottingham Forest; Denis Irwin for £625,000 from Oldham, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for £1.6 million from Molde was sensational business.
We could be here all day talking about Fergie’s transfer market masterstrokes.
But there were some bad ones, too. Splashing out £7.4 million on the unknown Portuguese winger Bebe, forking out £4.5 million on calamitous goalkeeper Massimo Taibi, and spending £3 million apiece on David Bellion and Gabriel Obertan rank among his worst buys.
And then there are the players who got away. He wasn’t convinced by Petr Cech after watching him in 2003; he passed up the opportunity to potentially sign Zinedine Zidane because he already had Cantona, while the likes of Sergio Aguero, Franck Ribery and Eden Hazard could also have ended up at Old Trafford if things had been different.
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Wright Told Fergie He Should Have Signed Him
ian wright pundit
Another top player who Ferguson could have signed but didn’t is Ian Wright, the Arsenal legend who scored 113 Premier League goals in 213 appearances.
Wright scored twice against Ferguson’s Manchester United side while playing for Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup final, but that eye-catching performance still wasn’t enough to land a move to Old Trafford.
Instead, he became a Gunner in 1991 and the rest is history.
In 2016, United and Palace met again in another FA Cup final. Ahead of the match at Wembley, Wright took the opportunity to ask Ferguson why he never signed him. The Man Utd legend provided a moment of hilarity with his response.
As the pair shook hands, the cheeky Wright said to Ferguson: “You should have signed me. You should have signed me.”
Ferguson responded: “You were too f***ing dear! I like cheap buys!” Watch the funny clip below:
Wright joined Arsenal for a then club-record fee of £2.5 million - a fee Ferguson clearly wasn’t willing to pay around the same time.
Considering he only spent £1.2 million on Cantona a year later, you can understand why.
Up until that point, United’s record signing was Gary Pallister, who joined the English giants in a £2.3 million deal from Middlesbrough in 1989.
While Wright probably would have been a hit at the Theatre of Dreams, it’s likely that Cantona would never have ended up at Man Utd had Ferguson made a move for the England international.