Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said he did not want to sign the Dutch striker Robin van Persie as the Scot thought that he was “too old”, said Ferguson’s former assistant Rene Meulensteen.
Van Persie signed for United in 2012 and notched up 26 goals and provided 15 assists in the Premier League (PL) and helped the club win their record 20th league title.
While Van Persie’s debut season was close to perfect, it nearly didn’t happen.
Alex Ferguson thought that the striker was too old and needed a lot of convincing to sign the footballer.
"I think it was in January, I got a call from Robin's agent," Meulensteen said on talkSPORT, "he said 'Robin's not going to extend his contract [at Arsenal], he wants to stay in England … and he wants to play for Manchester United and also for Sir Alex Ferguson.
"I thought, that's a bit of a statement, and the only thing I can do is ask. So I walked into his office and I said 'Robin van Persie is interested in joining us, what do you think?' and he said, 'Nah, he's too old', he was 27 at the time [he was actually 28], had a bit of an injury record. And I said, 'Ah, we'll look into that, I wouldn't dismiss it straight away.”
"We had more discussions and we said 'this teams needs something, they need a spark', so what I did is I asked some of the senior players during training, if we could get [Luka] Modric, Van Persie, or this guy, who would you pick? And most of them said, 'Well Robin would be brilliant'."
Eventually, the move happened and Van Persie wrote history for the Red Devils after joining them on a £20m deal, which was worth every penny.
After scoring 58 goals in his three-year-long career with United and winning two trophies, he left the club for Fenerbahce in 2015 with a legendary status.