Jose Mourinho: Sir Alex Ferguson knew he couldn't persuade me to go to Manchester United

Mourinho was considered one of the leading candidates to replace Ferguson when the manager announced his decision to retire in 2013.

At the time the Portuguese was widely expected to depart Real Madrid, with a return to the Premier League mooted. And Mourinho admits that, while the chance to work at Old Trafford would be considered an honour for any manager, everyone involved realised that it was Stamford Bridge where it wanted to be.

Unied eventually appointed David Moyes instead.

“Every manager in the world looks at Man United as a huge club but I wanted to come to Chelsea and we didn’t bring that to the table because we were so open and he knows so much about myself,” Mourinho said in a new BBC documentary on Ferguson.

“He knew that for almost a season I want to leave Real Madrid and I want to come to Chelsea.”

Mourinho’s recollections contradict some past reports – Spanish journalist Diego Torres famously claimed in his biography of Mourinho that he had “sobbed loudly” when he discovered that United had opted for Moyes instead – but Ferguson has broadly backed up the claims.

The Scot denied suggestions that he had been the driving force behind Moyes’s appointment, as the former Everton manager failed to last a year in the role.

“When I announced my retirement, do you honestly believe that one man could decide the future of Manchester United?” Ferguson said. “That’s absolute nonsense.

“There was a good process. They’re a professional football club. They know what they’re doing, the Glazers, David Gill. José was going back to Chelsea, Carlo Ancelotti was going to Real Madrid, Jürgen Klopp had signed a contract with Dortmund, Louis van Gaal was staying with Holland for the World Cup.

“The other thing was I took Pep Guardiola for dinner in New York in the September and I had no idea I was ever going to retire and I said to him give me a call and tell what you’re going to do. No answer.

“We’d like to have spoken to many managers, believe me, because that’s the process. We’d like to have asked them what they felt about leaving a big club to go to a bigger club. To come to Manchester United. But it wasn’t there for us.

“I think we did the best under the circumstances we were in.”