Manchester United "were never interested" in Carlos Tevez and turned down the opportunity to sign Javier Mascherano, according to the club's chief executive David Gill.

The arrival of the two Argentinian internationals at West Ham on transfer deadline day sparked a major debate over just how the Londoners had managed to beat the likes of United, Arsenal and Chelsea to their signatures.

However, Gill revealed that as late as last week, United had the chance to snap up Mascherano on a short-term deal.

He said: "We were never interested in Tevez. Mascherano, we were offered him. We watched him throughout last season and he played at the World Cup, clearly. We were offered him at the start of the summer transfer window for a significant sum.

"The manager and his staff did not want to pursue that. We were also offered him towards the back end of last week in a loan-type deal for a year, and again we were not interested in that.

"From Manchester United's perspective, Tevez was never on the shopping list. Mascherano we watched closely and very carefully and the experts on that area in our club determined that we did not want to go for him."

United have refused to rule out making another bid for Bayern Munich's Owen Hargreaves in January.

Gill admitted their interest in the midfielder, who played a starring role in England's 5-0 defeat of Andorra at Old Trafford yesterday, would persist despite Bayern's refusal to sell this summer.

Gill's comments came amid criticism from fans that the club were not active enough towards the end of the transfer window as both Chelsea and Arsenalstrengthened.

However, having invested heavily in midfielder Michael Carrick and goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak following the arrivals of Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra in January, Gill defended the club's activity.

He said: "We understand the frustration of fans, who feel we should have been more active. But we are very conscious that the quality in our squad is very high and therefore the players we bring in must add to that quality, they must be defined as reasonably valued and very critically, we believe, they must want to be a Manchester United player.

"They are the players we are interested in."