Rio Ferdinand ‘gutted’ Man Utd failed to sign £86m Man City star

Rio Ferdinand admits he is ‘so gutted’ that Manchester United failed to sign new Manchester City star Ayyoub Bouaddi.

Man City beat a host of rivals to the £86m signing of highly-rated Morocco international Bouaddi over the summer.

In moving to the Etihad Stadium on a five-year contract, Bouaddi became the Premier League’s most expensive teenager.

Manchester City targeted the 19-year-old after selling Ballon d’Or winner Rodri to Barcelona and fellow midfielder Tijani Reinders to Al-Qadsiah.

Bouaddi has already shown glimpses of his immense potential at Man City and Ferdinand was blown away by his second-half cameo in last week’s Champions League defeat to PSG.

‘Did you see when Ayyoub Bouaddi came on? This is why I was talking about him over the last year and during the summer transfer window,’ Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel.

‘He came on and showed PSG that they may have missed out on someone who was on their doorstep when he was playing in France.

‘He turned 19 this month, right? His transfer fee is the same as [Andrey] Santos and [Youri] Tielemans combined. Manchester United were in for him, 100%, but the fee was just too much.

‘Just that little cameo against PSG makes you go, “oh, I can’t believe we missed out on that. I can’t believe it.” I’m so gutted, so gutted. He’s bad! He’s so calm under pressure.

‘Man City have got that many games that then can share the load about. Because of his age you can just dip him in and out but sooner rather than later that’s not going to fly with him because he’s an incredible footballer.

‘They’ve got Elliot Anderson and Enzo Fernandez is that midfield as well but this kid could be the best of the three, easily.’

Following his impressive impact against European champions PSG, Bouaddi played the entire 90 minutes of Man City’s win over Ipswich Town on Saturday.

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