Dodging a Bullet thread

Wheato

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All those players that we have pined over down the years. Those ones that tore it up in the champions league group stages, the ones who were touted to be the next big thing in world football, the final piece in the jigsaw for our team...

I'll start off with the enigma that is Tanguy Ndombele
 

SecondFig

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We were heavily linked to Bakayoko, also to William Carvalho... But it's so hard to know whether we were ever genuinely interested or if it was just agents/clubs using United to drum up interest or a new contract
 

acnumber9

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Dennis Zakaria was supposedly the holy grail for years and we were mad not to be signing him. He can’t even get on the Switzerland team. And they play Granit Xhaka. I wouldn’t be surprised if this lad from Monaco is another nobody’s seen outside of You Tube and has become the second coming.
 

Raw

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Griezmann. Wouldn't have been anywhere near as good for us as we hoped, and he's a total twat to boot.
 

Loon

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David Hirst. Pretty good striker, mind, but his body started falling apart the time Fergie made offers for him. Then, one little call from Leeds...
 

Pexbo

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Stefan Defour
Johan Gourcuff
 

RedRonaldo

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We are linked with Joshua King not long ago before we signed Igaho on loan in summer of 2019. Last season he scored 0 goals in 11 PL games, and 0 goals in 12 championship games. A striker with 0 goals in 23 league games (PL/C), think about it.
 

Infra-red

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Wesley Sneijder. One-season wonder who was largely rubbish from Autumn 2010 (which is when we would have signed him) onwards.
 

2 man midfield

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Joseph Bosingwa
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Kevin Strootman*

*bit harsh but he never set the world alight
 

RC89

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Griezmann and I remember us being linked to Aurier.
 

Nytram Shakes

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Sniejder

Clearly was on the decline by the performances in the seasons following our interest in him and trying to meet the wage package he was on at Inter would have been disastrous.
 

Stobzilla

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Sniejder

Clearly was on the decline by the performances in the seasons following our interest in him and trying to meet the wage package he was on at Inter would have been disastrous.
If only we had been smart enough to get Madrid to throw him and Robben into the Ronaldo deal.

---------- Rooney
Nani -- Sneijder -- Robben

We would have won the league for another 5 years on the bounce.
 

Stobzilla

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He looked incredibly talented for a time, wonder what went wrong there.
Injuries did for him I think.

Same with Defour who I think I remember reading, received like a 2 page letter from SAF after he suffered his serious metatarsal injury. Seems like we were certainly looking at him.
 
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MadMike

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Most recent ones are Griezmann and Dybala, easily. They would have cost an absolute bomb in salary and wages, they wouldn't have performed to the expected level (like they literally didn't for Barca and Juve respectively, after their rumoured transfers to us collapsed) and we wouldn't have been able to offload them easily. They would have made the Di Maria mess look like spilt water in comparison.
 

JPRouve

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He looked incredibly talented for a time, wonder what went wrong there.
Mainly fitness, he has been perpetually injured.

The problem with answering the OP is that context is everything, you often can't claim that you dodged a bullet by looking at the outcome in a different environment.
 

romufc

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Griezman has to be one of them. Heavily linked to us for a big fee, went to Barca instead a few later be it but he was rubbish for them.
 

Nytram Shakes

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If only we had been smart enough to get Madrid to throw him and Robben into the Ronaldo deal.

---------- Rooney
Nani -- Sneijder -- Robben

We would have won the league for another 5 years on the bounce.
Yeah Robben despite injuries was the exception to the rule that wingers slow down with age, amazing how quick he was for so long, would have been a loverly signing.

Sneijder would have still been a mistake though.
 

Stobzilla

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Yeah Robben despite injuries was the exception to the rule that wingers slow down with age, amazing how quick he was for so long, would have been a loverly signing.

Sneijder would have still been a mistake though.
Not for that first season after Madrid I don't think. He was absolutely on fire from 2009-2011. He may have slowed down after that but there is an argument that he got his head turned by us and didn't pick his level back up. But it was 10 years ago so, ho hum.
 

DWelbz19

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Nobody remembers the potential £50m for Sean Longstaff? Does he even play for Newcastle anymore? We’d have been better with Cheese Wagstaff
 

Blood Mage

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Morata quickly springs to mind, you just know Woody would still be struggling to shift him now. Also it's still early days but it's looking like we made the right call not to sign Reguilon too.
 

Blood Mage

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Nobody remembers the potential £50m for Sean Longstaff? Does he even play for Newcastle anymore? We’d have been better with Cheese Wagstaff
Haha I remember watching a highlight vid of him looking like prime Scholes when we were linked and getting excited. It's amazing how deceptive youtube reels can be.
 

Mihai

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We are linked with Joshua King not long ago before we signed Igaho on loan in summer of 2019. Last season he scored 0 goals in 11 PL games, and 0 goals in 12 championship games. A striker with 0 goals in 23 league games (PL/C), think about it.
Quite sure it was Jan 2020, the same transfer window we signed Bruno. But, yeah, agree with this.
 

Mr Smith

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Wesley Sneijder. One-season wonder who was largely rubbish from Autumn 2010 (which is when we would have signed him) onwards.
This is the correct answer. Would have been a disaster.

A lot of people also wanted Pepe before he signed for Arsenal, definite bullet dodged there.