Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals just how close Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland were to signing for Man Utd

During Solskjaer's stint as United boss between December 2018 and November 2021, the Norwegian tried to recruit Bellingham from Birmingham City and Haaland from Molde and then Red Bull Salzburg respectively. However, his advice went unheeded, the pair both ended up joining Borussia Dortmund and the rest is history.

He said on SkyBet's Stick to Football podcast: "Jude [Bellingham], he was in the building. I was there, Sir Alex Ferguson was there, Bryan Robson and Eric Cantona were all there that day when he came to the club. We all spoke to him and sold it as well as he could. He knew what he wanted a certain amount of minutes in the first team. He was 17 at the time, and he was the most mature 17-year-old I’ve ever met – he had it all planned out."

On Haaland, he added: “I had him [Erling Haaland] in Molde, for two seasons. The summer before I got here [joined Manchester United], I rang the club and said, ‘You’ve got to sign this boy – he’ll be top class’. That was June/July 2018, and they said no – they had enough reports on players. Then I became the caretaker manager [of United], and we’d sold Haaland to RB Salzburg. I tell the club straight away to buy him while he has a release clause. We knew that then, and no one else would’ve paid the money - €20 million, it would’ve been a bargain. Even though with his links with Alfie [Haaland], and Manchester City and Leeds.

"It was the club’s decision to not go for it then. We never made bids or went in for him, until after he started scoring for Salzburg. By then, Borussia Dortmund were there, Juventus were there, everyone was there. His release clause then was still good - €60 million.

"He’s got more than just being a great lad. He’s such a team player, and one-on-one with a keeper, he doesn’t think about his own stats. He passes if someone else is through and it’ll be a 100% goal. He’s a gem.”

Both Haaland and Bellingham have since gone onto become one of the best players in the world, with the former winning the treble and bagging a hatful of goals for Manchester City and the latter starring at Real Madrid. This is a huge case of what might have been for United.

Bellingham is set to be in action for Madrid against RB Leipzig in the second leg of their last 16 tie in the Champions League on Wednesday night and Haaland will feature in City's match against Copenhagen in the famous competition at the same time.