Sir Alex Ferguson had wanted to sign three Borussia Dortmund stars | OneFootball

Manchester United waltzed to the Premier League title in the 2012/13 season but haven’t been champions of England since.

It was, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season at Old Trafford.

The Scot left behind a squad that was a little older than it ideally would have been and that, plus the appointment of David Moyes, meant an enormous rebuild was left behind.

It could, though, have been so different.

Speaking to Manchester Evening News, Ferguson’s former coach Rene Meulensteen revealed the legendary manager had begun to target three German stars before making his decision to leave the club official.

“The fact that he was going to retire or finish came to me and a lot of others as a complete bombshell,” Meulensteen said.

“He was as sharp as ever. He was always an early bird, always arriving early at Carrington. I didn’t read anything in him where it suggested it would be his last season.

“We had possible scouting meetings, possible players we were looking at in terms of trying to build a picture of what we think we need. All that was ongoing.

“We looked at a few German players like (Mats) Hummels, who went to Bayern Munich. I think we looked at (Ilkay) Gündogan and (Marco) Reus, too. There was a number of players but we never got that specific to really target them.”

What could have been.

Hummels is one of the finest defenders in world football and Reus, when fit, is one of the best attacking players in the game.

As for Gündogan, he ended up at Manchester City at the beginning of last season and now has a Premier League winners’ medal.

Things could have been so different.