David Moyes has claimed that his spell in charge of Manchester United would have been more successful if the club had completed deals for several world class players.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Cesc Fabregas were all identified as transfer targets upon Moyes succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson, the most decorated manager in English football’s history.

Moyes failed to sign any of those initial targets, and later in his tenure, he saw an attempt to bring Toni Kroos to Old Trafford fall through.

“When I first went in my real target was Gareth Bale,” Moyes said on Friday, ahead of his return to Old Trafford with Sunderland on Boxing Day.

“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.



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

Moyes, ultimately, did not last the full season at United and was relieved of his duties once Champions League qualification became an impossibility in April 2014.

So, what could Moyes’ first-choice United XI have looked like if, by the end of the 2013/14 season, he had snared his primary transfer targets, rather than just Marouane Fellaini?