The season before I joined, my agent phoned me and told me that United were showing some interest to get me over to England. At the time, like everybody probably knows, I didn’t feel I was ready yet to sign, to make that step up. First I wanted to establish myself in Holland and at PSV and become an international. Hopefully after that I could think about going abroad to the UK, to United.

The first time around, we said we were happy to wait. PSV gave me a new contract over there, but sometimes things can go very quickly in football. Six months later, I told the club that I wanted to go because United were still following me and they were still in contact with my agent. Now I felt that I was ready to make the step.

I’ve always been a fan of English football and especially United. Everybody knows United in Holland, so it’s huge here. To get the opportunity to play for that team, you want to grab it with both hands and take that opportunity because also in football you don’t always get what you want. You can be a fan of a club but it’s never a certainty that that club wants to sign you. Sometimes you need a bit of luck as well, and that was the case for myself. I was delighted that they had come in for me again.

However, the PSV chairman, Harry van Raaij, was making it very hard for myself and for United because I’d signed that new deal six months earlier. He said: “Okay, you can leave the club, but I want to have 50million Guilders,” and that was a lot of money at that time [around £15million]. Of course, no club was going to pay that, but United were really determined to make it happen. We all wanted it to happen.

I had to make it happen.