Manchester United are prepared to make an attempt to sign Gareth Bale this summer if Real Madrid indicate that he is available, but they made their first offer for him way back in January 2007.

Bale was then 17, a regular in Southampton's first team and already the youngest player to represent Wales.

United never got as far as announcing on their website that they had agreed a deal, as they did with another 17-year-old Welshman, Aaron Ramsey, before he joined Arsenal from Cardiff in 2008.

But there was a point when Sir Alex Ferguson thought it was close.

United's offer was of a small down payment with a series of add-ons if Bale did well. Southampton turned it down, choosing instead to accept Tottenham Hotspur's larger offer, £5 million up front rising to £10m.

Ferguson explained at the time that United's bid reflected the teenager's "potential" and suggested Tottenham were "wrong" to promise first-team football.

In the end, Ferguson was proved right in both his interest in the youngster and his assessment that it may take him time to adapt.

It wasn't until 2010-11 that Bale made more than 30 Premier League appearances for Tottenham in a single season and, at one point, had been close to joining Middlesbrough in part-exchange for Stewart Downing.

After Bale won the PFA Player of the Year and PFA Young Player of the Year awards in 2013, Ferguson admitted he was still annoyed about what had happened more than five years earlier.

"We were disappointed in Southampton at the time because we were first there, but they never came back to us," he said in May 2013.

"It was not the boy who turned us down, it was Southampton, then a few weeks later he signed for Tottenham Hotspur."

Just days after that interview, Ferguson announced he would retire at the end of the season. By then, Bale had been converted from a left-back into a goal-scoring winger.

He got 26 goals in 44 games in his final season at White Hart Lane, enough for Ferguson's replacement, David Moyes, to identify Bale and Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas as his top summer targets.

New transfer chief Ed Woodward, who had taken over from David Gill the same summer, was a fan, too, and Moyes was convinced Bale would move to Old Trafford.

This time, United's offer was the largest on the table. But Bale had already chosen Real Madrid.

"When I first went in my real target was Gareth Bale," Moyes recalled last year.

"I felt all along that Gareth Bale was a Manchester United player. I fought right until the last minute. We actually offered a bigger deal than Real Madrid.

"But Gareth had his mind made up on going to Real Madrid. That was, in my mind, the player I really wanted to bring to Manchester United.

"The other one was Cesc Fabregas, who we thought we would get right up until the last minute."

Moyes had to settle for Marouane Fellaini, and was sacked after just 10 months.

Louis van Gaal looked at Bale in both 2014 and 2015, only to be told by Real Madrid there was no chance. But despite repeated knock-backs, he has remained a target.

As recently as May, one official suggested the club should do more to promote their interest through the media, in response to Real's very public pursuit of David De Gea. He was only half-joking.

United's stance is always the same. They are interested in the world's best players, should they become available. The same is true of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar or anyone else in that bracket. The problem, though, is those players are rarely up for grabs.

Jose Mourinho sounded dismissive when asked about Bale in Santa Clara last week.

But it was not a reflection of his opinion of the 28-year-old. More that he doesn't want Woodward wasting time on deals he feels are too difficult to close.

"I never felt a desire from him to leave," Mourinho said. "So why lose time and energy on that?"

He said something similar when asked about Neymar in March.

It is Kylian Mbappe's proposed world-record move to Real Madrid that has raised the possibility, especially in Spain, that Bale could leave.

United and Mourinho, who has said he wants a new winger this summer, would be at the front of the queue if that was the case.

Still, as things stand, Mbappe is a Monaco player while sources have told ESPN FC that Bale's camp are convinced he will stay at the Bernabeu next season.

But Mourinho wants another attacking player this summer and if Bale is told he can leave, United will be in the mix to finally get their man. Just 10 years later than they planned.

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by ROB DAWSON, MAN UNITED CORRESPONDENT

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