Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t lose much in the Premier League, but he did miss out on signing certain players to other sides in the top flight.
Matt Jansen was part of the Carlisle team that earned promotion to Division Two in 1996/97, before going on to score nine league goals for them in the third tier in 1997/98. Having just turned 20, Jansen’s performances piqued the interest of Premier League sides, with Manchester United and Crystal Palace both interested in signing him.
“I was at Carlisle and Crystal Palace and Manchester United came in for me, £1m and rising,” Jansen told FruityKing. “I opted for Crystal Palace. Terry Venables took me round, took care of me and I felt that I would carry on playing first team football, relatively more at Crystal Palace than I would have at Manchester United.
Manchester United missed out on young striker to Crystal Palace
“I was only 19 or 20-years-old at the time, so I opted for Crystal Palace that time. Then Palace got into financial difficulty and a whole host of clubs came in, including Juventus and Manchester United again.”
Palace suffered relegation to the second tier at the end of 1997/98, though Jansen did manage three Premier League goals in just eight appearances as he settled in quickly at Selhurst Park. 1998/99 started well for the young striker, too, as he bagged seven times in 18 games to prove his value to the team.
Those financial issues ultimately proved the reason why he left Palace midway through the season, however, as the Eagles looked to survive as a football club.
“Crystal Palace were heading into administration and needed money up front there and then, and Blackburn offered to do that,” Jansen added. “Palace were desperate for it and Blackburn had just won the Premier League a few years before, they were doing really well.
“They weren’t the Blackburn Rovers of today. So I had to help Crystal Palace out to stop them going into administration.”
Blackburn paid £4.1m for the services of Jansen in January 1999, with the Englishman suffering another relegation come the end of the season. That arguably proved a positive for Jansen, who smashed in 23 league goals during the 2000/01 season to earn Rovers’ promotion back to the Premier League before scoring a goal in their 2002 League Cup final win against Tottenham. That form earned him an England call-up, but he failed to play due to illness.
“I opted to go to Blackburn Rovers,” Jansen said. “Anybody can talk in hindsight, and I had a crash after that. It was what it was but I enjoyed my time at Blackburn Rovers so I can’t really complain. No regrets. Well, maybe getting on a scooter in Rome!”
As Jansen highlights, he suffered a motorcycle accident in thee summer of 2002 that led to long-term hospitalisation, spending six days in a coma. He struggled thereafter, scoring just four league goals for Blackburn in the next four years before leaving Ewood Park in the 2005/06 season.
