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Dusan Tadic almost joined Manchester United in 2014, but opted to join Southampton in order to work with Ronald Koeman, his father has revealed.

The Serbian playmaker had impressed for four seasons in the Eredivisie for Groningen and FC Twente, before joining Southampton in the summer of 2014. He went on to score 24 times and register 35 assists in 162 appearances for the Saints before moving to Ajax for just £10m in 2018.

Since then, he has scored a remarkable 48 goals with 41 assists for last season's Champions League semi-finalists in just 84 appearances.

Costing just £28m across his career, Tadic is the type of bargain player any big club would seek to find and develop. Now, in an interview with Voetbal International, the player's father says United were close to bringing him to the Premier League instead of Southampton.

The reason for Tadic's decision came down to the chance to work with Ronald Koeman at St Mary's, rather than Louis van Gaal at Old Trafford.

“Dusan could go to Manchester United and Southampton. I wanted him to go to Manchester, to Louis van Gaal. But Dusan wanted to go to Ronald Koeman. We couldn’t work it out together,” Petar Tadic said.

“Manchester United have always been a top club. I was a fan of Bobby Charlton, George Best, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes… They have always had top players. Even now things are going less well, I still love Manchester United.

“That’s why I was really mad at Dusan. We talked about it all evening, but in the end, Dusan said he would choose Southampton anyway. “