10 Man Utd Players Who Nearly Signed For Liverpool

8. Gabriel Heinze

Possibly the most notorious case in recent years of a player attempting to cross enemy lines, somebody should have warned the seemingly oblivious Gabriel Heinze to the chaos that would ensue as a result of his transfer request. It's not even as though the Argentine left-back was one of Manchester United's best players that hurt the supporters the most - it was simply the fact that he was pushing for a transfer to Anfield that didn't sit well with them in the slightest. Having lost his place to Patrice Evra in the starting line-up at Old Trafford, he demanded a move to the Champions League finalists in May 2007, which as instantly rebuffed by a bemused Sir Alex Ferguson. The story didn't end there though, as the crafty Rafa Benitez returned with threats of lawyers and court cases, in a bid to force Ferguson's hand. Throughout the summer, Heinze had been doing all he could to muscle his way to Anfield, claiming to have possessed written permission allowing him to move for £6.8 million. In the end, a Premier League arbitration panel agreed that the document was 'unambiguous in that it envisages only an international transfer', leaving the former fan favourite's proposed transfer floating dead in the water. A cynic might question - why Heinze? With a left-back hardly at the precipice of any club's transfer priorities, why did the Liverpool hierarchy bother to futilely pursue the Argentine for the bones of three months, instead of moving on to the next target? One might conclude that Heinze was simply used as a pawn, as Benitez sought to get under Ferguson's skin, unsettling him by any means necessary. With the Manchester Uited supporters spending the summer spitting venom at a former cult hero before an escape route was fashioned to Madrid, it certainly worked.