The club’s fans won’t be happy about this.
Patrice Evra has revealed how close he came to re-joining Manchester United last month.
At the start of January, reports linking the veteran defender with a shock return to Old Trafford from Juventus began to circulate.
United supporters, including Evra’s old teammate Rio Ferdinand, were excited by the prospect of the fan favourite returning to Old Trafford.
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The 35-year-old spent eight, extremely successful years with United, playing almost 400 times for the club. He was a very popular figure with the club’s fans and tipped to be a great manager in the future by Alex Ferguson.
Evra won five Premier League titles, three League Cups, the Club World Cup and the Champions League and ended up captaining United before leaving for Juventus in 2014.
Evra continued to be successful in Italy, where he won two Serie A titles with Juventus.
The French full-back has revealed that, when he knew his time in Italy was over last month, a return to Old Trafford was his first choice, and he spoke with Jose Mourinho.
Evra says the United manager wanted to sign him, but someone else at the club blocked the move. The defender doesn’t name the person.
“I was very close to a return to Manchester United,” Evra told Sky Italia.
“I also spoke with Mourinho but there was a person, whose name I will not say, who probably did not like the idea of my return.
“Even the fans were enthusiastic and would have been delighted, but because I realised that they [the club] would not do anything I then asked my agent to look for other teams.
Evra also said Marseille made him feel wanted.
“Marseille immediately won me over with their project and immediately created a great feeling. We only spent one day to close the deal. They really treated me like a God, making it clear they had a great need for me.”
The 35-year-old signed an 18 month deal with the French side last month. Maybe one day he’ll reveal the identity of the mystery person who stopped his move back to United.
