Erik ten Hag has lifted the lid on his time at Manchester United and how he desperately wanted Harry Kane to be signed.

Whether or not Kane wins the Ballon d'Or this year or not, it's incredibly hard to argue against what he's done since joining Bayern Munich from Tottenham in the summer of 2023. The England skipper has tallied 155 goals and 39 assists from a total of 157 matches across all competitions for the German Rekordmeister and has set a plethora of scoring records in the process, having most recently reached the 100 goals mark in the Bundesliga the quickest any player has ever done so (98 matches).

Kane has also broken his trophy drought at Bayern, something that plagued the striker throughout his Tottenham career and was often the subject of lighthearted jokes doing the rounds on social media. The 280 goals he scored for Spurs, while an incredible tally, never resulted in any silverware for the North Londoners. At Bayern, he's won two Bundesliga titles, two German Supercups, and one DFB-Pokal while personally collecting three straight Torjägerkanone's for being the Bundesliga's top scorer.

At this point, there's not many superlatives left to describe Kane, but his career trajectory could've looked a little bit different had he not wound up in Munich, which was a very real possibility before he left Tottenham. There were justifiably a bevy of clubs interested in the England skipper and trying to sign him from Spurs at one point or another.

Erik ten Hag Wanted Kane at Manchester United

Ten Hag endured a rather hit or miss tenure as Manchester United manager after he was brought in from Ajax in the summer of 2022. Among a mixed bag of results across all competitions, the club did win the 2023 Carabao Cup and 2024 FA Cup during his reign, but was also at the center of disciplinary standoffs with Cristiano Ronaldo at the time that didn't exactly do wonders for his optics at the club.

Ten Hag was ultimately dismissed by United in October of 2024, but not before trying to piece together a squad that he felt would eventually start firing on all cylinders and compete at the highest level.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, ten Hag went into great detail about his time as Manchester United manager and some of the players he really wanted the club to sign while he was there, namely Harry Kane.

"I said to them, ‘I want only one player — and you know who. I fought for it. I heard that he was very positive, but I never spoke with him about the issue. I don’t know how the decision process went with John, Richard, the Glazers," ten Hag recalled his push for the club to try to green light a move for Kane three years ago.

"They came to the conclusion. I don’t have the insights in the financials," the Dutch manager continued in his recollection of what United's board felt of a potential Kane move at the time.

Of course, not much has gone right at United since then and the irony of ten Hag not having the proper insights on "financials" for a potential Kane move didn't glimmeringly foreshadow Sir Jim Ratcliffe making drastic budget cuts in 2025, going as far as making staff reductions in the club's canteen.

Ten Hag Knew The Club Needed High Profile Characters

Ten Hag was always facing an uphill battle in trying to sign a player like Kane for the club and he had also wanted to bring in Declan Rice, Frenkie de Jong, Danny Welbeck, and even Brian Brobbey, who has now become a prominent player for Sunderland.

"I think a club like United, you need these profiles to be successful. Personality, and they are mature, and they’re accountable. We signed five, six players, young, high potentials. But they are not the finished product. They need guidance from good professionals, like Kane, Rice, and Bruno (Fernandes)," Ten Hag had stressed.

Ten Hag would have seen how Daniel Levy refused to lower Tottenham's valuation of Kane in the summer of 2021 when he was heavily linked with a move to Manchester City to join forces with Pep Guardiola, so bringing in a player worth €110m was always going to be difficult for ten Hag.

Instead of Kane, ten Hag brought in the likes of players Antony, Rasmus Højlund, Casemiro, Mason Mount, and Lenny Yoro, none of whom really hit true heights at the club bar, arguably, Casemiro.