Patrick Vieira has revealed he had the opportunity to join Manchester United as a player.
The France midfielder made his mark for Arsenal in the Premier League, arriving in north London in 1996 and winning three titles during his nine years there, including captaining the "Invincibles" team in 2003-04.
But Vieira has said he had the chance to join Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, Arsenal's regular title rival during that period.
In an interview with Sky Sports, Vieira said: "I had the opportunity to move to Real Madrid a couple of times and I even had... An opportunity to move to Manchester United.
"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. 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.
"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.
Patrick Vieira had the chance to join Manchester United. Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images "But I couldn't leave Arsenal, 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."
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Vieira eventually left Arsenal in 2005 and had stints with Juventus and Inter Milan before finishing his career with Manchester City.
He then went into management and has had spells at New York City, Nice, Crystal Palace, Strasbourg and Genoa and, now 50, is currently head coach of Senegal.