Sir Alex Ferguson has opened up about a dinner he had with Pep Guardiola one year before he selected his Manchester United successor

Sir Alex Ferguson wishes a 2012 dinner with Pep Guardiola had taken place earlier so he could have convinced the Spaniard to replace him at Manchester United. Guardiola had already committed his future to Bayern Munich and went on to manage rivals Manchester City.

It has been 13 years since Ferguson left United. In his nearly 27-year tenure, the Scot cemented his status as an Old Trafford immortal, winning 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League crowns and a haul of domestic and international honours.

David Moyes was handpicked to follow in his footsteps but infamously found those boots too grand to fill. He lasted just 10 months in the job after being hired in July 2013 and was out the door by April 2014.

Reflecting in his new book, Games of My Life, Ferguson recalls a meeting he had with Guardiola a year before he called it quits. The Spanish boss had impressed as Barcelona manager and had all but signed with Bayern. But Ferguson says if he could turn back the clock, he'd have staged the dinner earlier and tried to coax him to United.

Guardiola won a continental sextuple in 2009 as Barcelona boss and after joining Bayern in 2013, he won seven major trophies. His time at City - which has been called into question following the club's guilty financial charges ruling, which they have appealed and continue to deny - was littered with success.

He won six top-flight titles and the Champions League, among many other pieces of silverware in England. But things could have been different. Ferguson penned: "Over the past ten years, I have often wondered what might have happened if the dinner I had with Pep in New York in 2012 had taken place a couple of months earlier.

"At the time, I hadn't decided for certain that I was going to retire. And Pep was convinced that, after achieving huge success in just four years in La Liga with a Continental treble as well as a League and Champions League double, he wanted to try life in the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.

"If I could rewind time, we would have dined some months earlier, I would have poured plenty of Tignanello (Italian wine) and I would have tried my hardest to convince him that his future lay in Manchester. Unfortunately for us, it did. Enough said."

Ferguson had not yet decided to retire when he met with Guardiola, but after the death of his late wife Cathy's sister in December 2012, he made the difficult decision to depart Old Trafford.

Ferguson continued: "Pep has set a breathtaking standard for the current generation of players or anybody aspiring to become a manager. Draped in Barcelona's blue and garnet from the time he was born, he had a brilliant club career and was one of the best creative midfielders in the game during the 1990s.

"During his playing days, Pep had more than a taste of success - he positively feasted on it. He also had the opportunity to play for a series of strong personalities with different approaches to managing - Johan Cruyff, Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal.

"Pep became manager of Barcelona when he was just thirty-seven years old. When I see some of the game's biggest stars leave the field and immediately take a manager's job without much preparation or experience, my heart sinks. It often ends badly, especially for the Premier League players.

"The stakes are too high. You're right in everyone's crosshairs. The public expect that your success on the field will automatically transfer to the dugout. Former players are impatient to make the transition to the top tier. Pep Guardiola is the most celebrated example of a manager who started with a top club when he was relatively young."

Games of My Life by Alex Ferguson publishes on 8th October by Macmillan.