Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted that Man United turned down the opportunity to sign Sergio Aguero – because he’d cost roughly the same as Anthony Martial.
Many United fans feel that the purse strings were tightened by the Glazer family in Fergie’s final few years at the helm, and that the American owners increasingly relied on the Scotman’s genius to eek out results with the resources available to him.
Revelations in Ferguson’s new book, Leading, are bound to reinforce the opinion that one of the world’s richest sporting entities were penny-pinching to a detrimental extent.
Fergie has revealed that he was keen to sign Aguero from Atletico Madrid in 2011, but the transfer fee quoted was deemed too steep.
“His agent was demanding a price we were not prepared to pay,” Ferguson explains. The price in question? £35m.
Considering that United had spent just shy of £30m each on both Rio Ferdinand and Juan Sebastian Veron a decade earlier, it seems bizarre that they’d baulk at a slightly higher fee for a talent of Aguero’s calibre.
Of course it was noisy neighbours Manchester City who eventually signed the Argentine for £38m – which seems like an absolute bargain now.
