10 Biggest Dodged Bullets In Man Utd Transfer History
4. Paul Gascoigne
Back in the late 1980s, after leaving Newcastle United, Manchester United came within a sunbed away from signing England legend Paul Gascoigne. The midfielder had reached a verbal agreement with Sir Alex Ferguson that he would join the Red Devils, but instead received a more... lucrative offer from Tottenham Hotspur.
The eccentric Gascoigne once explained in his own, inimitable way that he agreed to play under Ferguson, only to receive a phone call from Irving Scholar, then chairman of Tottenham. Scholar offered to pay Gascoigne £2,500 a week and buy his dad a house. The midfielder then pressed Scholar for more, and asked him for a BMW private reg and a sunbed, which Spurs through into the deal to pinch him from under Ferguson's nose.
In the end it's a good thing United didn't sign Gascoigne. After joining the Lilywhites instead in 1988, the eccentric star lasted only four years. In 1991's FA Cup final clash with Nottingham Forest, Gazza made a lunging challenge on Forest's Gary Charles, badly injuring himself in the process and tearing cruciate right knee ligaments, meaning he would go on to miss 16 months of football and never play for Spurs again.
There were other unfortunate incidents. In September later that year, Gascoigne's career was thrown into doubt after he was forced to undergo fresh surgery on his dodgy knee following injuries sustained in a nightclub scuffle back home in Newcastle. His battles with alcoholism were well noted at this stage, and his career and private life would go on to unravel over the following years.