Speaking at his first press conference as boss of Manchester United, David Moyes revealed how the job offer was delivered by his predecessor, Sir Alex Ferguson. "I'm incredibly privileged to be the manager of Manchester United," said Moyes. "And very grateful to Sir Alex and the board for making that happen.

"It was a really strange situation for me, I had no idea whatsoever.

"A lot of people think I knew something about it. I knew nothing at all until Sir Alex gave me a call, and asked me to come to his house.

"I was expecting him to say 'I'm going to take one of your players' or something else, I wasn't sure.

"We went in and the first thing he said to me was 'I'm retiring'. I said 'Yeah, when?' I mean, he was never going to retire was he? But he said 'next week'.

"His next words were 'and you're the next Manchester United manager'."