Arsenal and Manchester United are the greatest of rivals, and over the years, they’ve had some incredible battles.
The infamous 8-2, Pizzagate and Arsenal’s 2005 FA Cup win are all games that will live long in the memory.
Meanwhile, off the pitch, Arsenal and Manchester United have also had some interesting battles in the transfer window.
Robin van Persie famously swapped Arsenal for United, while Manchester United wanted Declan Rice before he signed for Arsenal.
Aaron Ramsey nearly joined Manchester United at one point, and speaking on the World Class Stamp Podcast, former Cardiff City manager, Dave Jones, says he has regrets about this deal.
Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images
Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images
Aaron Ramsey shouldn’t have joined Arsenal
Jones spoke about his time at Cardiff and the deal to sell Ramsey to Arsenal.
According to the manager, Ramsey never should’ve signed for Arsenal, claiming that he wanted to sell the midfielder to Manchester United instead.
Via the BBC, Ramsey would eventually be labelled as ‘world class’ as he grew into a top player at Arsenal.
“And then when you think about it, they built a new stadium within that, training facilities within that. And you’ve got to give Peter Ridsdale credit for that because he still built a brand new stadium and a training facility,” Jones said when discussing Cardiff’s situation at the time.
“How we did it, I really was on the back of selling players, getting them in cheap and selling them for big money.
“Ramsey shouldn’t have gone to Arsenal. I wouldn’t have let Ramsey go to Arsenal. I wanted him to go to Man United.
“Yeah. Because Fergie was going to let me have him back on loan. I knew if he’d have gone to Arsenal, I knew Wenger would play him because he was that good. But Fergie was going to send them back to you straight away. So you’d never really know how good he was.”
What Aaron Ramsey said about joining Manchester United
Ramsey himself has spoken about this situation and how he almost signed for United.
The midfielder says he joined Arsenal because he felt the Gunners went above and beyond to get this deal done, and he felt particularly wooed by Arsene Wenger at the time.
“Towards the end of that season I had a few clubs sniffing around. I had messages left on my phone from Sir Alex Ferguson. I went to David Moyes’ house at the time. I jetted off to Switzerland to see Arsene Wenger because he was doing the Euros press at the time,” Ramsey said.
“It was a surreal moment, I felt really wanted by Arsenal, they went above and beyond, it was crazy, a few weeks before I was at Cardiff and then I was playing amongst some of the best players in football.”
Ultimately, this was a great career move for Ramsey as he would become a modern-day Arsenal legend, scoring winning goals in two FA Cup finals.
However, had Ramsey joined United, he’d likely have a Premier League winners’ medal in his collection as well.
Arsenal and United are likely to have a number of other transfer battles in the future, and nowadays, it’s a much easier decision to make as Arsenal are on another level to United right now.