Pep Guardiola was given the opportunity to succeed Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

Ferguson confirms in his new book that Guardiola, not David Moyes, was United's first choice.

Guardiola returned to management with Bayern Munich following his year-long sabbatical.

Guardiola’s decision to snub United by taking the Bayern job came just weeks after he had dined with Ferguson in New York, however.

“I had dinner with Pep Guardiola in New York in 2012, but couldn’t make him any direct proposal because retirement was not on my agenda at that point,” Ferguson said. “He had already won an enviable number of trophies with Barcelona… and I admired him greatly. I asked Pep to phone me before he accepted an offer from another club, but he didn’t and wound up joining Bayern Munich in July 2013.”

Ferguson talked about the other candidates ahead of Moyes.

“When we started the process of looking for my replacement, we established that several very desirable candidates were unavailable. It became apparent that Jose Mourinho had given his word to Roman Abramovich that he would return to Chelsea, and that Carlo Ancelotti would succeed him at Real Madrid.

“We also knew that Jürgen Klopp was happy at Borussia Dortmund and would be signing a new contract. Meantime, Louis van Gaal had undertaken to lead the Dutch attempt to win the 2014 World Cup.”