Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed that Manchester United twice rejected Erling Haaland after he had recommended the forward to the club.
In an in-depth interview with The Overlap, Solskjaer has opened up on his time at Manchester United and revealed the club twice missed out on the chance to sign Haaland.
Solskjaer had worked alongside Haaland at Molde and first recommended the striker to Manchester United in 2018, six months before his appointment as manager at Old Trafford.
He said that the Red Devils turned down the chance to sign Haaland at that stage, before missing out on a second opportunity to sign the forward from Red Bull Salzburg for a €20m fee.
Haaland has since evolved into one of world football’s finest forwards and has scored 80 goals in 84 appearances since joining rivals Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund in 2022.
The 23-year-old scored 52 goals in all competitions, a single season record for a Premier League player, as the Citizens won a Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble last season.
“The summer before I got here [joined Manchester United], I rang the club and said ‘You’ve got to sign this boy – he’ll be top class’. That was June/July 2018, and they said no – they had enough reports on players,” Solskjaer said.
“Then I became the caretaker manager [of United], and we’d sold Haaland to RB Salzburg. I tell the club straight away to buy him while he has a release clause. We knew that then, and no one else would’ve paid the money – €20million, it would’ve been a bargain. Even though with his links with Alfie [Haaland], and Manchester City and Leeds.
“It was the club’s decision to not go for it then. We never made bids or went in for him, until after he started scoring for Salzburg. By then, Borussia Dortmund were there, Juventus were there, everyone was there. His release clause then was still good – €60million.”
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