The Red Knights met yesterday to discuss plans to buy-out the Glazer family from Manchester United.

The Times says a group of leading City financiers have held talks with a view to wresting control of Manchester United from the Glazer family. The so-called Red Knights group met yesterday morning at the Fleet Street offices of the "Magic Circle" law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Keith Harris, a lifelong United fan and stockbroker with Seymour Pierce, has been assembling a group of like-minded potential investors in recent weeks and has been joined by Jim O'Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, who has been an outspoken critic of the Glazer regime and the debt loaded on to the club by United's owners.

It is understood that today's talks were hosted by Mark Rawlinson, a partner in Freshfields' corporate practice, who advised United on its takeover by the Glazers in 2005.

Finsbury, the leading City public relations firm who also advised United in 2005, has been lined up to advise the Red Knights, although no formal appointment has yet been made.