Paul Scholes is one of the greatest midfielders to ever play the game, with a whole host of football legends singling him out as the best.

Ryan Giggs and Sir Bobby Charlton are the only players to have made more appearances for Manchester United than him, with him proving to be one of the very greatest one-club players.

In 2003, a decade before his eventual retirement, Scholes reiterated his intention to spend his career at the club: “I never want to leave Manchester United. The club might want to sell me, but I will never ask to leave.”

However, in 2000, the only phone call of his career came in asking him whether he would be tempted to leave United to sign for Inter Milan.

I was never ever made aware of any team coming in for me. I did have one phone call off an agent, Bryan Robson’s old agent, he rang me while we were away at Euro 2000 to ask me if I would be interested in going to Inter Milan but that’s the only phone call I ever had. I never heard anything after that and the manager never said anything to me.

I was playing at my boyhood club, I was a Manchester lad, we were winning trophies all the time. If the manager said to me that he didn’t want me I would definitely have gone if there was a big club abroad who wanted me but there was never any need to ever think about Barcelona, Real Madrid or AC Milan because I was at the biggest club in the world anyway.

We didn’t win as many Champions Leagues as we should have but we were every inch as good as those teams, if not better.