Former Manchester United manager David Moyes has confirmed that he could have signed for Arsenal when he was younger but he didn’t want to go there on loan.
As with so many managers it is often forgotten that Moyes was actually a decent player during his career and he was seen as a relatively exciting prospect when he was at Celtic.
He has now confirmed in an interview with FourFourTwo that he was offered a chance to move to Arsenal but then manager Terry Neill later decided that they would prefer a loan move.
Moyes said that he wanted a more permanent option, which is why he decided to sign for Cambridge United who were then in the second tier of English football.
“When I tell people they start laughing, but Cambridge were in what’s now the Championship. Arsenal manager Terry Neill called me at my house in Glasgow. Charlie Nicholas had recommended me.
“Terry told me they were going to sign me, but a week later, they called back and said: ‘We’ve decided to take you on loan.”’I wasn’t having that, leaving Celtic to go on loan, so I turned it down. Arsenal went on to buy the late Tommy Caton instead. I joined Cambridge and played every week, which I wasn’t doing at Celtic.”
It’s always amusing when you learn about potential parallels at various points in football history but of course had Moyes not moved to Cambridge he may have never moved to Preston North End.
It was with Preston that he started his managerial career and from there he moved to Everton and eventually ended up at Manchester United.
He is currently unemployed following his sacking from Real Sociedad and he has been linked with a number of moves back to England in the past few months.
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