Manchester City and Manchester United often shop in the same areas of the market.
The Citizens memorably wanted to sign Cristiano Ronaldo before his return to Old Trafford in August 2021 – while Manchester City also famously tried to land Harry Maguire before Manchester United paid a world record £80m to sign him.
Competition between Manchester City and Manchester United in the transfer market even dates back to 2011 – when both sides made approaches to sign Phil Jones.
Phil Jones says he had the option to join Manchester City
The man who racked up 229 appearances for Manchester United has now told the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast that he could have joined Manchester City – but was unsure given uncertainty surrounding the manager.
Jones said: “I had spoke to Man City, but I think they were going through a time where they didn’t really know about the manager, they were going to change the manager. That was when Mancini was coming in.
“(Spoke to) Chelsea as well, they had problems with the manager. I didn’t want to come in not knowing who actually wanted me at the club. I had Harry Redknapp on the phone, he was brilliant, for Tottenham.”
Ultimately, Jones – who compared Luke Shaw to Kyle Walker – says a chat with Sir Alex Ferguson swayed him towards Old Trafford, and Manchester United eventually sealed a £16m agreement with Blackburn Rovers back in June 2011.
Who Manchester City ended up signing instead of Phil Jones for Roberto Mancini
It took Manchester City a while to find a standout central defender to partner Vincent Kompany after Jones opted to join Manchester United.
In that summer of 2011, the Citizens ended up signing Stefan Savic in a £6m move from Partizan Belgrade, having previously recruited Jerome Boateng from Hamburg the summer prior to that.
Not until Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones arrived in the summers of 2015 and 2016 respectively did Manchester City find two central defenders for the long term, the latter more so, as Matija Nastasic also failed to assert himself at the Etihad Stadium.
