Club Director Confirms Manchester Utd Bid For £150k-A-Week Star
One of the strong points of Manchester United’s erstwhile manager, Sir Alex Ferguson is his transfer skills. The legendary Scot had a philosophy of developing home grown players but whenever he decides to shop for players from other leagues, they mainly turn out to be notable signings. Although the retired manager gaffed with the signing of players, the likes of Juan SebastianVeron and Diego Forlan, he will surely be remembered for the way Cristiano Ronaldo churned out.
With all his abilities, the Scot also missed out on several players who could have propelled the Red Devils to do much more and one of those players is Karim Benzema. According to the president of France based Olympique Lyonais, Jean-Michel Aulas, the French outfit actually received an offer for the striker from Premiership giant Manchester United but Karim obviously turned down the deal for a more lucrative one from the current Europeanchampions, Real Madrid.
“For a long time he wanted to play one day at Real Madrid and when operations began to fall into place, we did not object,” Aulas told Canal+.
“The proposal was superior to Manchester United’s but he was given the opportunity to go where he wanted.
“I am very happy for him. This is the best striker in La Liga and one of the best in the world.
“The criticism he has received are part of the life of a professional football player, but we had to be above it all.”
Karim Benzema rode on to fame on the back of his performances with Lyon which helped the French outfit win 4 Ligue 1 titles and it is believed that it was this feat that caught the attention of Manchester United boss, Ferguson but eventually lost the versatile striker to a 35m Euros from the Spanish giants.
Aulas confirmed that the club left it to the striker, the decision to join either of the two clubs but also indicated that the striker had always said he wanted to play at Real Madrid. Although the deal offered by the Madrid based outfit was superior to what Manchester United were willing to give, Bezema’s decision to ignore United may have also being fuelled by the fact that the Scot in charge had rejected him when he came over to the club for trials as a boy.
Benzema went on to blossom at Madrid wining both the Spanish la Liga and the Champions League with his current employers while Sir Alex got Bulgarian Dimitri Berbatov instead.
This revelation can be quite hurtful to some Manchester United fansbut when you assess the issue closely, you’d realise that the Old Trafford outfit did not miss out in the striking department. At the time when Kareem moved to Madrid, Sir Alex still deployed Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney and Dimitri Berbatov, three very resourceful strikers who fired the club to the Premier League glory that same season. Manchester United also had the dynamic Cristiano Ronaldo to inspire the attack.
With his dynamism, Karim Benzema has a conversion figure of 33.3% this season for Real Madrid but Manchester United on the other hand, has enough striking options of their own. The Old Trafford boss could deploy any of Radamel Falcao, Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and even the upcoming James Wilson, so the Manchester based outfit may have missed out on Karim, but with the quality of attackers at their disposal, the loss could not have been obvious.