Gary Neville has revealed he would have played for Arsenal if Manchester United had decided to offload him during his playing career.
The Manchester native spend his entire career at United and is among a rare breed of one-man club in modern football.
Neville and United had an intense rivalry with Arsenal in the Premier League, but the former defender revealed the Gunners would have been his No.1 choice had he left Old Trafford.
‘I’m fortunate in the sense that, because I signed a five year deal or six year deal when I was 29, it ran out when I was 34, I’d made the decision that if Sir Alex came up to me at the end of that contract and said “Gary, your time’s up”, I was never going to go and play for another club,’ Neville told Sky Sports.
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‘I made that decision that I only wanted Manchester United next to my name.
‘However, if he’d come to me at 28 and said, “Gary, your time’s up”, of course I would’ve gone and played for another Premier League club. I would have had to have done, because ultimately I’m a football player.
‘If you said to me, in the perfect world, in my years of growing up in the Premier League, playing, which clubs would I say did I think had some real tradition, they’re a proper club?
‘Arsenal would be number one. You used to go to Highbury, you could just feel the tradition of the place, and I just felt they always did things the right way.
‘The clubs in Europe I always admired were Juventus and Bayern Munich because we played them a lot in the late 90s, early 2000s and I just respected them as football clubs in terms of the teams that they had.
‘Bayern Munich always felt meticulous in their preparation, so for me, Bayern Munich would be the club I would choose internationally.
‘In the Premier League, it would be Arsenal – not that Arsenal would ever want me or I’d ever want to go to Arsenal.
‘But that would be the club, to be fair, that I’d say have got the most tradition in terms of history.
‘I also like Aston Villa, Newcastle are another club – in fact I’d play for anybody!
‘If at 28 or 29 Sir Alex had said to go I would’ve said Arsenal, Aston Villa, Newcastle, they are the three clubs I would’ve looked at.’
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