Sir Alex Ferguson could have signed Thomas Muller when he was 10 and missed out on Ronaldo in 1994... and the five other stars that got away from Manchester United

Sir Alex Ferguson enjoyed unparalleled success during his quarter of a century at Old Trafford – but the former Manchester United manager has revealed he missed out on a number of elite stars.

While the likes of Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo, Roy Keane and Edwin van der Sar all starred for United during the Ferguson era, there were other top names who Ferguson admits he tried to sign, but could not get the deals over the line.

In his new book, Leading, Ferguson reveals Brazilian striker Ronaldo was a target back in 1994, while they knew about Germany’s World Cup winner Thomas Muller when he was just 10. As well as two players who went on to make their names in London at Chelsea.

In Ferguson’s penultimate season at Old Trafford they missed out on the Premier League title to rivals Manchester City after Sergio Aguero’s late winner against QPR on the final day of the season. But had things turned out differently, Aguero could have been wearing the red of United that day.

Here are the seven players that got away from Ferguson and the former United manager’s reasons why.

Petr Cech

‘In 2003 I went to see Petr Cech in goal for Rennes in a game against Auxerre. We thought Petr was a bit young for the bruisers in the Premier League, but Petr went to Chelsea and in the subsequent decade kept 220 clean sheets for the club.’

What happened next?  

CLUB: Chelsea TROPHIES: 4 x Premier League titles, 1 x Champions League, 1 x Europa League 4 x FA Cups, 3 x League Cups

Didier Drogba

‘Didier Drogba was another. He was playing for Olympique de Marseilles and we went to check him out. But the club wanted £25million for him and Chelsea moved in for the kill before we made up our minds.’

What happened next? 

CLUB: Chelsea, Galatasaray TROPHIES: 4 x Premier League titles, 1 x Champions League, 4 x FA Cups, 3 x League Cups; 1 x Turkish Super Lig, 1 x Turkish Super Kupa

Thomas Muller

‘Thomas Muller, who scored five goals for Germany in the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, was a 10-year-old playing for an amateur team several miles from Munich when we first heard about him. We had him watched and the following day he committed himself to Bayern Munich.’

What happened next? 

CLUB: Bayern Munich TROPHIES: 4 x Bundesliga titles, 1 x Champions League, 1 x FIFA Club World Cup, 1 x UEFA Super Cup

 Ronaldo

Ronaldo

‘We wanted to sign the Brazilian striker from Cruzeiro in 1994, but we could not get a work permit and he went to PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands.’

What happened next? 

CLUBS: PSV, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Corinthians TROPHIES: 1 x KNVB Cup, 1 x Cup Winners Cup, 1 x UEFA Cup, 1 x La Liga title, 1 x Copa del Rey

Sergio Aguero

‘We had a chance to buy Sergio Aguero before he went to Manchester City, but eventually his agent was demanding a price we were not prepared to pay.’ 

What happened next?

CLUB: Manchester City TROPHIES: 2 x Premier League titles, 1 x League Cup

Lucas Moura

‘Right towards the end of my time at United we were pursuing Lucas Moura, the immensely talented right winger who, at the time, was playing in his native Brazil for Sao Paulo. We offered £24million for him, which was upped to £30m and again to £35m, but Paris Saint-Germain signed him for £45m. David and I were just not prepared to go to those sorts of levels.’

What happened next? 

CLUB: PSG TROPHIES: 3 x Ligue 1 titles, 1 x Coupe de France

Raphael Varane

‘In 2011, I hurtled down on the train from Euston to Lille to sign the young French defender Raphael Varane. David Gill was getting into the finer points of the contract with Lens, Varane’s club, when Zinedine Zidane got wind of this and somehow scooped him up for Real Madrid from under our noses. I don’t think Jose Mourinho, who was managing Real Madrid, had even seen Varane play.’

What happened next? 

CLUB: Real Madrid TROPHIES: 1 x Champions League, 1 x La Liga title, 1 x FIFA Club World Cup, 1 x Copa del Rey 

Other players

In the book, Ferguson also reveals other transfer targets he failed to sign for Untied, including the well-publicised pursuit of Alan Shearer as well as Patrick Kluivert.

He said: 'There were plenty of other players I would like to sign – such as Alan Shearer, the striker who became a thorn in our side while he played for Newcastle, or the Argentinian, Gabriel Batistuta, who spent most of his career playing in Italy, or Samir Nasri who went to Manchester City in 2011.

'In 1989, I failed to get Glenn Hysen from Fiorentina, but wound up with Gary Pallister instead. My pursuit of the Dutchman, Patrick Kluivert, who was playing at AC Milan, was also an exercise in futility, but it turned out alright because a bit later we snared Dwight Yorke’