Arsenal’s legendary former captain Patrick Vieira has made the stunning revelation that he sat down with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to discuss a potential transfer during the height of the two club’s fierce and febrile Premier League rivalry.

It’s taken two decades for Vieira to lift the lid on a scandalous sequence of events which could have completely rewritten the modern history of England’s top flight.

“I had the opportunity to move to Real Madrid a couple of times and I even had ... an opportunity to move to Manchester United,” Vieira told Sky Sports this week. “I had a meeting with Sir Alex Ferguson. Full respect, I couldn’t say no to meeting him because he was an important figure in the Premier League.”

Vieira didn’t put an exact time stamp on this secret rendezvous, but there were reports in the summer of 2003 that United had been sniffing around Arsenal’s talismanic skipper. Vieira only had a year left on his contract in north London and United’s underwhelming marquee midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón was angling for an exit before joining Chelsea.

The Gunners’ vice-chairman David Dein defiantly declared that his captain “is not for sale” but Arsenal were not in a strong bargaining position. Particularly if Vieira was willing to meet Arsène Wenger’s greatest rival behind his back.

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How Man Utd Would Have Looked With Vieira

“We met and we talked and he explained to me his vision that he had for Manchester United and the team that he wanted to build,” Vieira explained, thinking back to his potential teammates at Old Trafford.

“He wanted to play me with Roy Keane, [Ryan] Giggs on the left-hand side, David Beckham on the right-hand side and [Paul] Scholes to play behind [Ruud] Van Nistelrooy, so it wasn’t a bad team.”

United had just won the league with that frontline, finishing five points clear of Vieira’s Arsenal in 2002–03. However, Ferguson was already aware that his second great side which won the treble at the turn of the century was coming to its end. “Although I was always trying to disprove it, I believe that the cycle of a successful team lasts maybe four years, and then some change is needed,” he would explain decades later.

Vieira turned 27 that summer and was widely regarded as one of the best players on the planet. The year before he was nominated for the Ballon d’Or, collecting more votes than Real Madrid’s first Galáctico Luís Figo, for example. Swapping Vieira for Verón, who never managed to live up to the record fee he commanded, would have made United even stronger while weakening their closest rival.

Ferguson made a convincing pitch, but he didn’t quite manage to tempt Vieira across the divide.

Why Vieira Rejected Man Utd

“I couldn’t leave Arsenal,” Vieira has since admitted. “I was too happy there and we were on the way of building something quite really special for the club and that’s the way it was.

“When you do well, of course there’s teams who are interested and then you have to make a decision. But the decision for me was to stay at Arsenal because I felt the love from the club, from the players and from the fans. Everything was there for me to grow up as a player and to achieve what I wanted to.”

Arsenal benefitted in the short term, going through the entire 2003–04 Premier League campaign without losing a single fixture with Vieira at the centerpiece of a team laced with grace and gusto. However, United weren’t entirely hampered by this turn of events.

How Man Utd Benefitted From Vieira Snub

Vieira didn’t arrive in 2003 but it would still be a transformative window for Manchester United. Verón was joined by David Beckham on the list of notable outgoings, prompting Ferguson to act decisively and sign a teenage Cristiano Ronaldo—a matter of days before Wenger could seal his arrival at Arsenal.

Ferguson’s instinct that a rejuvenation was needed proved to be correct and United would build the spine of a new side across the coming years, adding the likes of Wayne Rooney, Edwin van der Sar and Nemanja Vidić.

First Arsenal and then a newly monied Chelsea took advantage of United’s rebuild but by the time Vieira did eventually leave the Gunners in 2005, Ferguson was ready. The Red Devils romped through three consecutive Premier League titles while also reaching back-to-back Champions League finals.

Arsenal would not have had their Invincibles had Vieira left but Manchester United could have also been denied their own glorious peak in the modern era. In a rare twist of fate, both sides may ultimately be happy with how things turned out.