Former Manchester United scout Derek Langlet has claimed that the club passed out on two of the most sought after players in football at the moment.
Langlet was speaking to the Manchester Evening News and made the revelation that Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie De Jong were two players that were offered to the club during his time in Manchester:
Players that they turned down? Matthijs de Ligt. We had God knows how many reports on Matthijs de Ligt. Frenkie de Jong and all these players now are sort of around Europe. Dayot Upamecano, who is now at Red Bull Leipzig, was another.
The 58-year-old went on to say that the rejection of these players led him to voice his concern to Ed Woodward:
This was one of the reasons why I had a meeting with Ed Woodward and I told him that I wasn't convinced with the competency of certain people at the club. I told Ed Woodward quite straight: 'If you think I'm going to sit here and just tell you what you want to hear, I'm not that man because I'm going to tell you exactly how I see it'.
Seven months later and Langlet would lose his job at the club after 16 years of service, and the scout blamed his forthright nature for his dismissal:
I think it was possibly part of my downfall as to why seven months down the line I was removed because I wouldn't tow the line in relation to telling them exactly what I thought.
It's one of them things in football - you come to accept it. Manchester United thanked me for the time I spent there and the players I'd taken in, but ultimately we could have been so much better if people had listened.
De Ligt and De Jong are currently the subject of much transfer speculation, with centre back De Ligt linked to Barcelona and Juventus and De Jong touted with a move to PSG.
