United secured the signature of French starlet Gabriel Obertan on 8 July 2009, with the highly-rated forward/winger joining the Reds from Bordeaux following a four-year spell with Les Girondins.

Prior to his arrival at Bordeaux, Obertan began his career with local club Paris-Pantin FC, before making the switch to Paris FC in 2002 and then Paris-Saint Germain. After spending a year at each, he moved to the famed Clairefontaine Academy in order to further his development, before being spotted by Bordeaux scouts.

He joined Les Girondins in 2005 and spent his first year plying his trade in

the reserves. After being offered a three-year professional contract in 2006, he was promoted to the first team at the start of the 2006/07 season and made his debut, aged 17, on 30 September 2006 against Valenciennes. He fired his first goal for the club on 22 April 2007, scoring the second in a 2-0 win over Saint-Étienne. By the end of the campaign he had racked up 17 appearances, 16 of them as a substitute.

The following season, he featured in 26 matches and scored two goals, but he was still limited to mostly substitute appearances due to the abundance of strikers at manager Laurent Blanc's disposal. That trend