Bryan Robson was one of the best English players of his era and when he left West Brom, he had a choice of Liverpool or Manchester United.
At the time, he was considered a really strong midfielder who captained both club and country and a man who had a good eye for a pass.
For our fans of that era, as easy as it was to hate players from Old Trafford, he was one of the lesser hated of the rivals across the M62 but he so easily could have been playing at Anfield instead.
Speaking on the ‘Quickly Kevin; will he score?’ podcast, the 65-year-old said: “In the England camp, the Man United players were saying ‘We’d like to sign you Bryan’ and the lads would see if there was any interest there from you.
“I didn’t just have the United lads, at that time most of the England squad was built around the Liverpool boys at the time and so I got very friendly with Terry McDermott, Phil Neal, Phil Thompson, Kevin Keegan, all them lot and they’d be saying ‘Liverpool are after you and they’d love you to sign’.
“You’d get that kind of conversation but I was contracted to West Brom and really, at the end of the day, it was who was going to pay the most for me and that would be the club I would go to.
“From what I heard, Liverpool wouldn’t go above £1.2 million but Man United went to £1.5 million”.
Considering the career the Durham-born midfielder went on to have, there would have been many of our fans at the time that would have loved to have seen him represent the Reds.
We didn’t do too badly without him though and he would have won a lot more in his career if we had matched the offer of Ron Atkinson’s side.
You can listen to Robson on a possible move (at 32:05) via the ‘Quickly Kevin; will he score? The 90s Football Show‘ podcast.
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Stevie Nicol on ESPN FC mentioned Robson yesterday, as a player who always left it all on the pitch, regardless of their position in the table. It was in comparison to Pogba, who says United have nothing to play for, and puts forth a lackluster effort