Wilfried Zaha was the 'real deal' but Man Utd squandered his talent - he is a symbol of the club's decade of waste after Sir Alex Ferguson's exit

Zaha was already causing a stir in the Championship with Palace in the 2012-13 season, but it took a personal recommendation for United to take notice. And the recommendation came from Ferguson's son, Darren, who had just watched his Peterborough side be torn apart by Zaha in a 2-1 home defeat and, according to The Athletic, phoned his father that same night. “This boy is the real deal,” he said. “He has everything you’re looking for.”

Weeks later, Zaha met Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton in a London hotel to discuss a move to United, and by late January 2013 he had sealed his his switch, although the deal allowed Palace to keep him on loan for the remainder of the campaign.

Zaha continued to work his magic for Palace and his nifty footwork proved decisive in the play-off final against Watford, earning the penalty which Kevin Phillips converted to send the Eagles back to the Premier League.

Zaha's future at United had already been dealt an unexpected setback, however. Ferguson had announced he was retiring and the man who had brought him to the club had gone. So too had his entire coaching staff, and when David Moyes arrived as Ferguson's successor, he sought instant results and did not want to take a chance on a 20-year-old with no top-flight experience.

Moyes started Zaha in the Community Shield against Wigan but took him off after an hour having been left unimpressed with his performance. He gave him just one more start, in a League Cup routing of Norwich. According to The Athletic, Zaha and Moyes barely spoke with each other during the course of the season.

Zaha opened up on his difficult spell at United in a 2021 interview with the Financial Times and revealed that he instantly felt Moyes did not believe in him. While he regrets not trying to make a bigger impression on his team-mates, he felt alone.

"Going there, and I’m thinking it’s all going to go well and then being hit with a manager that’s not keen on you and being away from home, I was a bit shell-shocked, like what do I do now?" he said. "Even then, I didn’t go to the manager’s office and ask why I wasn’t playing, I didn’t have the confidence to do those things. It was just accepting and hoping he’d change his mind."

Zaha also felt that as United started to fall apart under Moyes, he was "forgotten about". Moyes continued to ignore Zaha and turned to teenager Adnan Januzaj from the academy instead. In January, Zaha was loaned out to Cardiff, then coached by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The winger got just five starts with the club, who were relegated at the end of the season.

Zaha had immense talent but he was still young and had barely been outside of south London for an extended period before. He found moving 200 miles north to Manchester traumatic and was often on his own. He confessed to spending his evenings watching television alone and eating croissants for dinner.

“That’s one thing people don’t think about as much. Before that, I’d never moved away from south London at all, but then, all of a sudden, I had that pressure of playing for the title winners," he told The Financial Times.

"That pressure and moving away from home was just crazy. I just didn’t have the basics like how to cook. Coupled with things like that off the field, it made things more difficult. I did have family that came up, but they went back to London sometimes. They were there with me but the times they went back would feel even worse because I was by myself and alone with thoughts. I was in a whole different place and not playing football, either, so it made things more depressing by 10."

There was also the completely untrue rumour that been doing the rounds on social media that Zaha was not getting in the United team because he had slept with Moyes' daughter. Zaha felt he was given no support or advice from the club on how to deal with it, and he sank into a depression.

"Obviously, getting to United isn’t easy, so not being given a chance is hard to take. I don’t regret anything because it made me stronger. I feel as though I can deal with anything now,” he told Shortlist Magazine in 2018.

"I went through so much with United, with England. There were rumours that the reason I wasn’t playing for United was because I slept with David Moyes’ daughter, and no one attempted to clear that up. So I was fighting my demons by myself, these rumours that I knew weren’t true.

"I was dealing with this at 20; living in Manchester by myself, nowhere near anyone else, because the club had a hold over where I lived. They hadn’t given me a car, like every other player. Nothing. I’m living in this hell by myself, away from my family, and I thought: ‘If this doesn’t make me stronger, what will?’

"When I was at United I had money but I was still so down and depressed. People think your life’s different because you’ve got money, you’ve got fame, so they don’t treat you the same.”

Moyes was sacked by United in April 2014, but successor Louis van Gaal also came with his own ideas and Zaha did not feature in them. That same summer the club signed Angel di Maria for a then-club-record fee of £60m ($72m), and Van Gaal encouraged Zaha to play as a striker as he had the Argentine and Ashley Young as his left-sided midfielders.

He got two opportunities in pre-season, against Inter and Real Madrid as a substitute, and after one training session back at Carrington he was bluntly told to find a new club. Zaha was grateful to Van Gaal for being honest and said he was "relieved" to be leaving.

He went back to Palace and scored in his first game, netting a 95th-minute equaliser in a 3-3 draw at Newcastle. His celebration was an outpouring of emotion, and not just for rescuing a point in dramatic circumstances. After a year of isolation, he was back where he belonged and felt important once more.

Van Gaal and Moyes have both had long and successful coaching careers, but they are not renowned for their man-management, unlike Ferguson. The Scot had brought through Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney when they were teenagers, playing a particularly important pastoral role with the Portuguese.

Zaha's former Palace coach Ian Holloway believes Ferguson would have shown the new signing the attention he needed. “That was the killer blow. Sir Alex would have loved his talent. He would have shown him patience, like he did when Cristiano Ronaldofirst came over," he told The Athletic. "Wilf had the same level of skill as Ronaldo but needed that guidance, with all Sir Alex’s knowledge to take him under his wing. It was a totally different scenario for him with David Moyes coming in.”

But ultimately Moyes and Van Gaal should not be blamed for their treatment of Zaha. United should have had a plan in place for their £10m asset and not left his development up to the whim of whichever managers came in after Ferguson.

And that is the problem United have had ever since the legendary manager stepped down. He ruled the club with an iron fist and controlled every aspect of it. After spending more than two decades there, he had the appetite and authority to do that. Moyes and Van Gaal did not have the same inside knowledge and there were no handover notes, no succession plan. The club only appointed its first ever director of football, John Murtough, in 2021.

United lost another key figure in the summer of 2013: chief executive David Gill. His successor was Ed Woodward, an investment banker who had risen through the club due to his success at signing commercial deals. Woodward had no background in the playing side, however, and had no plan with what to do with Zaha. So a young man who had the talent to become one of their best players in the future was allowed to slip through the net.

Exactly 10 years ago, Zaha was struggling to adapt to United, who were also struggling to deal with the loss of the overarching figure of Ferguson. Zaha, however, has come out much stronger from his year of 'hell' at Old Trafford and returns there as one of the stars of Galatasaray, Turkey's biggest and most successful club.

"People ask me if I regret it. No, it was a learning curve. It’s made me stronger mentally," he told the On The Judy podcast. "I met some amazing players, some amazing people, and I’m glad I went there. I haven’t got time to feel sorry for myself. I just have to stamp my authority on anything I do now."

United, though, are barely in a better place one decade on. They have still not won the Premier League or even come close to it since Ferguson left in 2013, and have made their worst start to a league season in 34 years.

And they still seem to have a huge problem with managing young players and making the most of their talent. Just look at Jadon Sancho, who is exiled from the squad for speaking out against Erik ten Hag. There are countless more examples of players who came to United with huge futures mapped out for them but have gone to waste, be it Alexis Sanchez, Shinji Kagawa, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Paul Pogba, Di Maria, Donny van de Beek, Radamel Falcao, Memphis Depay, Romelu Lukaku or Harry Maguire.

All were great talents who had proved themselves before United or have proved themselves again since leaving. Some can be written off as bad apples or having bad luck, but a clear correlation can be drawn: United is turning into a club where talent goes to die. Zaha got out just in time.