Alan Pardew has revealed he wanted to sign James Milner when he was West Ham manager before the club brought in Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.
The Argentinian pair arrived in a shock double-deal from Corinthians back in 2006, with Tevez writing his name in the club's history books after scoring the goal that saved the Hammers from relegation in the 2006/07 campaign.
Both players left after just one season following a third-party contract wrangle between West Ham and the players' agency, MSI, with Tevez joining Manchester United and Mascherano heading to Liverpool.
Pardew, currently out of work after leaving Dutch outfit ADO Den Haag in May, reflected on the bizarre double transfer - and claimed he originally wanted to sign Milner, who was playing for Newcastle United at the time.
"One thing I wanted to do was to buy Milner. That was all I wanted and we could get him - I know we could get him," he said during an interview with The Coaches' Voice.
"The chief executive was going, 'oh no, da la da', and I was going, 'I only want James Milner, just get me James Milner and we'll be happy days'.
"Anyway, the signals weren't right. And then he rang and said to me, 'what would you do if I told you we were going to bring you Mascherano and Tevez?'
"And then there was a big press blowout about these two guys, who had been [linked with] Man United, Man City and Liverpool and put around, Arsenal were going to take them, then no one's taken them and they've ended up with us. I didn't have an issue with that really, because they are two great players. Anyway, they arrived at the football club."
Mascherano made just five Premier League appearances before departing for Anfield and Pardew admitted both players struggled to adapt to the demands of English football at first.
"Mascherano was Mascherano - he's just come in and is like that," he added.
"Tevez looked like he'd been on the beach for nine months and he came in and the players were looking at me like, 'gaffer, he can't even run'.
"We were trying to get him up to speed and Mascherano was a position I didn't even want. It was very, very complicated."
