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13th Oct 2017

David Moyes admits he tried to sign Nemanja Matic for Man United before Marouane Fellaini

What might have been...

Simon Lloyd

David Moyes used to be Manchester United manager, y’know.

Despite not doing particularly well at it, he still has a habit of talking about it quite a lot. This was the case as he made an appearance on Radio 5Live on Friday night, too.

As well as confirming that he would be interested in speaking to the Scottish FA about potentially taking over from Gordon Strachan, Moyes also discussed his miserable ten month spell as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor at Old Trafford.

As part of that, he also talked about his first major signing as United boss: Marouane Fellaini.

The Belgian had been a key part of Moyes’ Everton time before he moved down the East Lancs Road to Old Trafford, and he ended up signing him for United on the final day of summer 2013’s transfer window.

Much to the surprise of nobody at all, Moyes admitted that his transfer plans during his first and only summer as United boss hadn’t quite gone as he’d hoped.

“I never wanted Marouane Fellaini to be my first signing,” he says in the video below, deciding not to finish the next sentence.

“I’ve got to say we looked at (Nemanja) Matic as well. At that time he hadn’t done so well for Chelsea and gone to Benfica and he was under consideration.

“In a way we did need a more defensive type – maybe someone who would sit and make passes from the middle of the park.

“But in the end we didn’t get a lot of the things we’d hoped for and in the end we ended up only getting Marouane on deadline day as well.”