Alan Shearer was set to buy Graeme Souness house before dramatic Man Utd U-turn

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Before signing for Newcastle United in 1996, Toon Army hero Alan Shearer has revealed that he had plans to buy Graeme Souness’ house and join Manchester United.

Shearer is the all-time Premier League top scorer with 260 goals and is famed as one of the biggest legends in recent history.

However, his career could have may have taken a completely different course if the forward didn’t decide to sign for his boyhood club in 1996 amid interest from United and Real Madrid.

The Red Devils were incredibly keen to sign the former Southampton but were battling for his signature with Newcastle, their title rivals.

Shearer was caught in two minds about the decision and initially concluded that he wanted to move to Old Trafford, and he had everything in place to do so – including purchasing the house of former Liverpool player Graeme Souness.

Speaking to Gary Neville on The Overlap, the 51-year-old spoke of how tough the decision was, he said: “I met Kevin (Keegan) before the concert in Huddersfield and things were great, but I was still undecided then because it was such a big decision.

“Man United, as you know, are a huge football club. The manager (Sir Alex Ferguson), we don’t have to talk about him because we know how big he is.

“At one stage I’d made a decision and gone home and said: ‘I’m going to go to Man United’. We’d even had a drive around Manchester and we were going to buy Graeme Souness’ house.

Would Alan Shearer still be the all-time Premier League top scorer if he joined Manchester United? Have your say in the comments below.

“Not so long after that concert we were both at, I got another call off Kevin to say ‘Can I have another half an hour with you?’ And I did, and I just thought: ‘I’m going to go back home, I’m going to go back to Newcastle, I can’t let this opportunity go.’”

In the summer that Shearer joined the Magpies for a then-record fee of £15million, United signed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer from Molde for approximately £2m.

Of course, the Norwegian went on to have a very successful spell at Old Trafford before moving into the manager sphere, where he is still learning his trade now with his former club.

• Premier League
• Newcastle United FC
• Manchester United FC

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