Much has been made of Manchester United missing out on Erling Haaland, who of course ended up at local rivals Manchester City, but Jack Grealish actually took a similar path.
Back in 2020, when Grealish was still lighting up things for boyhood club Aston Villa, the Red Devils made little secret of their interest and were once viewed as the favourites to pry the attacking midfielder away from Villa Park. At that time, City were regarded as outsiders in the race to land the England international.
However, United baulked at Villa's asking price of £80million. Co-owner Nassef Sawiris was adamant that if Grealish was going to leave the club, it was not going to be for less than that figure.
A year prior, the Red Devils forked out the same amount of central defender Harry Maguire from Leicester City, so Villa were unwilling to negotiate any lower.
Some United fans thought they had already gained the upper hand in the race for Grealish given he had been pictured enjoying dinner with Rio Ferdinand at the Old Trafford icon's restaurant as a teenager.
One year after United were told to cough up £80m and stalled, City pounced at the expense of their arch-enemies and snapped up Grealish for a British-record transfer fee of £100m.
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Yep, that's right. United missed out on one of their main transfer targets at the hands of their noisy neighbours now aware that if they'd just met Villa's demand of £20m less, he'd be lining up in the iconic red shirt in front of the Stretford End.
In the aftermath of Grealish's exit, Villa chief executive Christian Purslow shed light on the player's reasoning behind why he wanted to call time on his stay and seek a new challenge.
"Jack wanted to be certain that if at any point a Champions League club came in for him and Aston Villa was not in that competition, that we would not stand in his way," he told VillaTV.
"Ultimately, he said it boiled down to wanting to play Champions League football now.
"Most importantly for our supporters tonight, I want you all to be reassured that the board, [THEN-manager] Dean Smith, [sporting director] Johan Lange and I obviously knew this day might come and we have planned accordingly."
Grealish's first season at the Etihad was one of development, with the 27-year-old learning to get to grips with Pep Guardiola's demands.
His second campaign has seen vast improvement and the Three Lions star has played a vital part in City's historic treble achievement.
Grealish has also struck up a close bond with talismanic forward Haaland, who was also the subject of interest from United at a similar time - the Old Trafford faithful must sit and think about what might have been.
