‘Wanted to sign’: David Moyes says he tried to get £6m Everton player when he was at Man Utd

David Moyes didn’t have the best of times during his spell as the manager of Manchester United.

The Scot was faced with the unenviable task of replacing Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford, and it’s fair to say that Fergie’s shoes were just too big to fill.

Indeed, Moyes was sacked after less than a year in the job, but, there is a case to make that it wasn’t necessarily his fault.

Moyes may have struggled to get the best out of Ferguson’s players, but he also had his struggles in the transfer window.

Marouane Fellaini was Moyes’ only major signing that first summer, and that’s no way to build a title-winning team.

Speaking on Up Front with Simon Jordan, Moyes has been discussing that first transfer window, and he says that he also wanted to sign another player from Everton during that time – Leighton Baines.

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David Moyes wanted to sign Leighton Baines for Manchester United

Moyes spoke about how he wanted to sign the £6m man.

“In truth we had also wanted to sign Leighton Baines, but again, going back to Everton, and we will mention Fellaini in a minute, was so difficult because of Bill and Bill was still so angry that I didn’t deal with things correctly.”

David Moyes needed more than Leighton Baines

With all due respect to Baines, the England international wouldn’t necessarily have been a needle-mover for United.

Patrice Evra was the Red Devils’ incumbent left-back at that time, and while he was getting older, Baines wouldn’t have been a huge upgrade on the Frenchman at that point.

Of course, Baines did know Moyes’ style of play very well, so that would’ve helped, but he wouldn’t have made United into a drastically different team.

A lot more needed to happen during that summer transfer window for United to maintain their levels.