Last summer, Gareth Bale became the world's most expensive player when he left Tottenham Hotspur to join Real Madrid for a record-shattering £85 million. But before all that he might have been a Red, had Southampton only picked up the phone when we made enquiries in January 2007. Bale was emerging as a talented young player when he came through the Saint's Youth Academy in 2006 and scored five goals for the club in what turned out to be his final season at St Mary's in 2006-07. United were interested in snapping him up, but Southampton didn't return our calls, and weeks later, he ended up at White Hart Lane. Former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson said:
We were disappointed in Southampton at the time, because we were first there, but they never came back to us. We were disappointed in that.'
We reportedly came close to signing Bale once more last summer before being gazumped by Real Madrid when they forked out the mega sum to take the midfield man to the Bernabeu.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
