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Man Utd news: ‘He nearly joined Manchester United in the summer’ - West Ham REVELATION
MARKO ARNAUTOVIC nearly joined Manchester United from West Ham in the summer, claims Arsenal legend Ray Parlour.
Arnautovic has fuelled speculation over his future at West Ham in the last couple of days.
The forward has admitted while on international duty with Austria that he wants to be competing with the best players.
“I’m 29, so that’s the best age,” Arnautovic told the Austrian newspaper Kurier.
“It’s clear that I want to compete with the best players. But in this affair I totally trust my brother (agent Danijel Arnautovic).”
He nearly moved in the summer, he nearly went to Manchester United
Arnautovic briefly played under Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho during a loan spell at Inter Milan during the 2009-10 season.
Parlour says the West Ham man was close to a reunion with Mourinho in the summer.
But the pundit has warned Arnautovic he may not be guaranteed the Champions League football he craves if he joins the Red Devils.
“He nearly moved in the summer, he nearly went to Manchester United,” Parlour said on talkSPORT.
“He’s a brilliant player. When you talk about him being a big part of West Ham, it’s a massive part of West Ham.
“You’ve got to try and keep him if you want to try and compete or get closer to the top six, you’ve got to keep players like Marko Arnautovic.
“But he might say ‘look, I’m 29 years old, 30 next season, so I need a new challenge and I need a bigger club and I need to go to a club where I can play Champions League football’.
“He’s not guaranteed to do that at Manchester United next year, so that will be interesting.
“At the moment they’ve got to either win it or come in that top four, which is going to be very difficult for him.”
Parlour says Arnautovic, who joined West Ham from Stoke for £25million last year, will attract a large fee if he did leave the London Stadium.
But he admits there is not much a club can do if a player wants to leave.
“These days the players have got all the power, if someone really badly wants to leave your club, you can’t really stand in their way,” Parlour continued.
“We’ve seen so many players who have done that and said ‘I want to go elsewhere’.
“So it’s very difficult because of the dressing room area, I don’t know how influential he is in the dressing room area at West Ham.
“Obviously you’ve got Mark Noble there who is the captain and he won’t be too happy about players going away on international duty saying ‘I want to leave the club now, that’s it, I’ve had enough of it’.”