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David Moyes has revealed Manchester United failed to land him a host of world class stars including Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.

The Sunderland boss has blown open the transfer secrets of his short reign at Old Trafford as he returns for the first time on Boxing Day.

Moyes admits he was handicapped from the start after being promised Galactico signings, and ending up with Marouane Fellaini.

Moyes says he was promised Ronaldo would return from Real Madrid, had Gareth Bale, then at Spurs, as his No1 target and Cesc Fabregas was being lured from Barcelona.

And later in his reign, Moyes had lined up Toni Kroos from Bayern Munich to join in his second summer in charge, before he was sacked after ten difficult months.

(Image: Getty)

The failure to lure a world class star hampered his first season in charge that ended him being axed before the end of his first season.

Moyes said: “When I first went in my real target was Gareth Bale. 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.

(Image: Action Images)

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

“I remember when I first met Sir Alex and he always said there was a chance Ronaldo might come back.

“So that was the level we were targeting. I was not going out to bring in seven, eight players, because we had a squad which had just won the league.

“Toni Kroos was agreed to come in the summer. I had agreed it with Toni himself and his agent.”

(Image: Angel Martinez / Real Madrid)

Moyes believes he’d still be there if he’d landed some of those big name deals adding: “Sometimes you don’t get deals done. Gareth Bale we were probably behind all along, Real Madrid were well in for it.

"The Cesc one was disappointing. It was very close. And Toni Kroos came up in January - it was done.

“A lot of players come into Manchester United and have not necessarily made the difference. But I think that, given time and having got to this period, I would have hoped I would be working with a successful team now.”

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