Anderson and Wilfried Zaha leave Manchester United: A day to forget for Sir Alex Ferguson

Transfer deadline day wasn’t the greatest viewing once it transpired that the majority of clubs were serious when they said there won’t be any big-money moves before the 11pm cut-off. But spare a thought for Sir Alex Ferguson. Yes, seriously.

For the 02 February 2015 will be remembered as the day when two of his biggest transfer flops finally left Manchester United for good. Wilfried Zaha, the English protégé who would take the world by storm having secured a £10m-plus add-ons transfer to the club that would go on to win the Premier League trophy that season.

Despite signing for the club in January, Zaha did not arrive until the summer, but he found things very different from the last time he was at Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson has retired, David Moyes was manager, and United weren’t really any good.

Meanwhile, forgotten midfielder Anderson has also left the club after a haunting end to his United career. The Brazilian joined the club in 2007 as part of a £30m move for both he and Portuguese winger Nani, though Anderson cost considerably more with Porto announcing they received around £26m.

He would go straight into the first-team squad and was a regular fixture in the successful 2006-07 Premier League campaign, but he would feature less and less as the years went by and was sent out on loan to Fiorentina for the second half of last season.

With the news emerging on deadline day that he was off to Brazil, it soon became apparent that his time with the club was coming to an end, and today Brazilian side Internacional confirmed they have signed the 26-year-old on a free transfer.

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The Zaha deal will hurt the club in that they sold him back to Palace for just £3m, representing a loss of at least £7m in transfer fee alone, and with the England winger making just four appearances totalling 167 minutes, he cost the club a hefty £59,880-per-minute.

Of course, Anderson featured more often for the club having spent over seven years on their books, but scored just nine goals in his 181 appearances in all competitions, meaning each one came at a price of £2.88m.