Manchester United have held a longstanding interest in Erling Haaland – that’s hardly a secret. But the chances of him ever featuring in Red are now very slim after he joined Manchester City this summer.
Haaland has enjoyed a spectacular start to life in the Premier League, scoring 11 goals after the first six games of the season, including two hat-tricks.
Now, journalist and transfer expert Fabrizio Romano has revealed that he could have been scoring all those goals on the other side of Manchester.
“One of the most in-form players in Europe this season, City’s summer signing Erling Haaland was close to joining Manchester United when he was at Red Bull Salzburg,” Romano wrote in his CaughtOffside column.
“Ole Gunnar Solskjaer tried to persuade him but he wanted to proceed with Borussia Dortmund as the perfect step in his career despite also having proposals from United and Juventus,” he added.
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Haaland was said to be one of United’s prime targets in the January 2020 window, with Solskjaer desperate to sign a forward at the time, having already sold Romelu Lukaku to Inter Milan.
As we all know, Haaland ended up joining Dortmund and you can’t deny that it was completely the right move for him at the right time. At Old Trafford, United scoured the market for a short-term option in that position and ended up signing Odion Ighalo on loan.
SN’s verdict…
All of the elite clubs have agonising ‘what if’ moments with players who were reportedly close to joining them but this one will definitely hurt some supporters.
Many people, myself included, envisioned Haaland reuniting with Solskjaer at Old Trafford after the pair had worked together in Norway.
But when Solskjaer’s reign at United badly unraveled in 2021, that became an increasingly unlikely proposition. Had United continued to improve, as they had done under the Norwegian for two years, it could have been reality.