Sir Alex Ferguson did everything he could to convince Pep Guardiola to manage Manchester United - but the Manchester City boss did not want to hear the Scot's final pitch.

In 2013, Ferguson played an active role in deciding his own successor. While David Moyes - whose Everton side host United on Saturday - was the one charged with succeeding the 13-time Premier League winning Scot, Guardiola was the first name on United's list.

Ferguson contacted the Catalan, who was in the final stages of a year-long sabbatical having left Barcelona in 2012, to convince him to move to Old Trafford. After that conversation, the now 83-year-old waited on a phone call that never arrived.

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In his 2015 book, 'Leading', Ferguson wrote: "I had dinner with Pep Guardiola in New York in 2012, but couldn't make him any direct proposal because retirement was not on my agenda at that point.

"He had already won an enviable number of trophies with Barcelona and I admired him greatly. I asked Pep to phone me before he accepted an offer from another club but he didn’t and wound up joining Bayern Munich in July 2013."

At one stage, Guardiola was also fascinated by the club, as the City boss' close friend and journalist, Marti Perarnau, revealed in the book 'Pep Confidential'. A passage said: "The day after beating Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final, Guardiola and [assistant Manuel] Estiarte travelled to Manchester to watch their next opponents in action.

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"It was May 4, 2011, and the pair sat together in the stands of Old Trafford watching Sir Alex Ferguson's team beat Schalke 4-1. Pep had turned to his friend and said: 'I like this atmosphere. I could see myself coaching here one day'."

When the opportunity to takeover from Ferguson arrived, Guardiola preferred the idea of moving to Germany to inherit Jupp Heynckes' Treble winners in 2013. Ultimately, Ferguson and the Old Trafford atmosphere were not enough to bring him to the red side of Manchester, with Guardiola perhaps realising the magnitude of the task that Moyes instead had to face.

United tried their hand with other candidates but found themselves running into dead ends. Ferguson added: "When we started the process of looking for my replacement, we established that several very desirable candidates were unavailable.

"It became apparent that Jose Mourinho had given his word to Roman Abramovich that he would return to Chelsea, and that Carlo Ancelotti would succeed him at Real Madrid. We also knew that Jurgen Klopp was happy at Borussia Dortmund and would be signing a new contract.

"Meantime, Louis van Gaal had undertaken to lead the Dutch attempt to win the 2014 World Cup. We chose David Moyes. He had been consistent in his job at Everton, had a good spell there - 11 years and showed appetite. Unfortunately, somehow it didn’t work out for David. The process was perfect. It was a good process."

Nearly 11 years on from his sacking at Old Trafford, Moyes is back at Everton and will welcome another under-pressure United manager in Ruben Amorim to Goodison Park. The Portuguese coach is firmly under the microscope, as eight losses in his first 14 Premier League matches have left United in 15th position. He is the latest boss to struggle after Van Gaal, Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick and Erik ten Hag all succumbed to the struggles.