Manchester United were offered Emmanuel Adebayor in failed Gareth Bale deal

Manchester United were ready to pay £100m for Gareth Bale in the summer but failed because Tottenham wanted to offload Emmanuel Adebayor

In demand: Manchester United were willing to offer £100million for the former Tottenham forward before his switch to Real Madrid Photo: REX

Manchester United attempted to hijack Real Madrid’s £85 million deal to sign Gareth Bale in the final two weeks of the summer transfer window, with Tottenham Hotspur using the opportunity to try to offload Emmanuel Adebayor to the Premier League champions. 

In a series of phone calls – and also at least one face-to-face meeting – between high-level officials from both clubs, United indicated they would bid around £100 million for Bale if he could be persuaded to give up his dream of joining the Spanish club.

At the time, United were desperate to land at least one marquee signing in the summer as a sign of intent with manager David Moyes newly arrived as the successor to Sir Alex Ferguson and with a new executive vice-chairman in Ed Woodward.

Bale had already rejected tentative approaches from Paris Saint-Germain having set his heart on a move to Real Madrid, who had been talking to Tottenham since May. United simply left it too late, which raises further questions over their transfer strategy last summer.

Spurs never believed that Bale would prefer to join United, who they host at White Hart Lane today, and were also highly reluctant to do business with a fellow Premier League club, not least because of the previously fractious history of deals between the two.