MARTIN EDWARDS: WHY UNITED DIDN'T SIGN ZIDANE
Manchester United's honorary president Martin Edwards has lifted the lid on five prospective signings who slipped through the net during his time as chairman of the club.
Edwards considers his biggest regrets in the transfer market were the unsuccessful attempts to acquire eventual World Cup winner Zinedine Zidane and England stars John Barnes, Paul Gascoigne, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.
Each of them had a major impact on the beautiful game with other clubs and their countries and, had things worked out differently, they could have become United legends.
While promoting his new book Red Glory which is available at the Old Trafford Megastore, Edwards provided some real insight during an exclusive interview with MUTV.
"Paul Gascoigne was certainly one [we missed out on]," he said. "We thought he was coming but he decided to join Tottenham. I think there were certain last-minute inducements involved.
"I'd done the negotiations for Alan Shearer and again, I thought he was coming. But [Blackburn owner] Jack Walker was very adamant he wasn't coming to Manchester United. It was a case of 'over my dead body' but he allowed him to go to Newcastle.
"Gary Lineker, as you know, was going to sign for Everton and his agent Jon Holmes rang me on the day and said: 'We're about to go on the train to sign for Everton but his first choice would be Manchester United, if you want him to come.' I put it to Ron [Atkinson] and he said: 'I've got four strikers already. The last thing we need is another striker.' So we passed on that one.
"With John Barnes, Graham Taylor rang Alex Ferguson to see if he wanted to take him before he signed for Liverpool. Alex passed on him because it was his first season, he had Jesper Olsen in his squad and he wanted to see whether Jesper would make it.
"When Zidane was at Bordeaux, Les Kershaw, the chief scout, was telling me we should be interested in him and I mentioned it to Alex. Alex said that Eric [Cantona] had also mentioned Zidane to him but Alex felt Zidane played in the same position as Eric.
"Having gone over to France to persuade Eric to re-sign for us, after the Crystal Palace incident, he felt that, if he had brought Zidane in, it may have affected Eric's position, so he stuck with Eric."
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