Gary Neville has revealed he told Manchester United to sign Cristiano Ronaldo and Louis Saha after finding it tough coming up against the pair.
Neville encouraged Sir Alex Ferguson to pursue the signings of the Portuguese and French attackers after they impressed playing against United. Ronaldo caught the eye during a step-over packed appearance for Sporting Lisbon against United in a pre-season friendly, while Saha scored twice at Old Trafford for Fulham in August 2001.
Legend has it that United players begged Ferguson to sign an 18-year-old Ronaldoon the plane home after playing Sporting in the friendly in the USA. The Scot eventually captured the impressive youngster for £12m and it turned out to be one of the greatest pieces of business he ever conducted as United boss, as the winger developed into one of the most devastating footballers on the planet.
After the match [against Sporting] I remember sending a text to my brother, saying 'we need to sign him' and apparently there was a lot of talk about him on the coach after the game," Neville wrote in a column for Sky Sports.
Obviously players should never be involved in signings, but he certainly made everyone sit up and take notice. I'd never heard of him and I'd never seen him before that night, but there was a huge excitement among the players afterwards.�
Saha was signed in January 2004 and started his United career with a bang, netting eight times in his first eight games, before eventually faltering under persistent injury woes.
Premier League players in history to score 25+ goals for 3 different clubs.
Jermain Defoe
Yakubu
Andy Cole
Louis Saha
Les Ferdinand pic.twitter.com/KqWs7HjuT6
The only other opposition player I've felt like that about was Louis Saha. I remember playing against him as a centre-back when he was at Fulham and he destroyed me three seasons on the bounce. I was devastated when I had to play against him and I thought 'we've got to sign him'.
He was clearly a different type of player to Cristiano, but we spoke about him in the dressing room in the same way. After that game against Sporting Lisbon, there was a great admiration and there was no doubt the players were all talking about Cristiano."