The Wise Auld Fox - Part II - The Great Teams

I can finally move on to one of the main reasons why I wanted to write this in the first place. The reason it has been on my mind since January, in fact.

The Fox knows what he’s doing.​

It took him a while, but by the time we’d won the European Cup Winner’s Cup in 1991, things were starting to change for the better around the club. The football, whilst still not magnificent was improving and the players were now pulling in the same direction as a unit rather than having an almost total deference to Captain Marvel. Some of Fergie’s own signings had long since held favour with the fans. Steve Bruce, a 1987 signing from Norwich City, was a centre-back, and a massive goal-scoring threat during his time at the club. He was Vidic multiplied by five, if you will, and Brian McClair had his own inimitable style that I never quite ‘got’ as a player but he was loved just as much.

With the public sway being mixed and on the back of some European success, Fergie was slowly creating his true vision for the club and his team. ‘The United Way’ many thought he had abandoned or dismissed was due a resplendent return that would see hordes eat humble pie of the most bitter affect.

If you ask most United fans what makes Fergie great, they’ll point to his trophies and his achievements and in particular, ‘The Treble,’ that haunts the rest of the league and will continue to do so if never matched. For me, however, longevity and sprawling achievements aren’t the sole factors in that which is important for a manager to be deemed great. Pioneering managers, adaptable managers, those with a specific style of play that oppresses and overwhelms are all more telling contributory factors of a great manager in my opinion. Take Brian Clough as an example. He was in the game for a long time as a manager, he didn’t win that much, all things considered, but it is how he won and what he won and with whom he won it with such shrift that heralds him into the pantheon of the true greats.

In Sir Alex Ferguson’s case, the most outstanding achievement he has overseen and the greatest ability he has, in my eyes, is the constant regeneration, transition and restructuring of his sides to suit the eras in which they feature. An explanation: many a manager throughout the history of the game have been perfect only for a particular era or generation of players. Their style becomes outdated and their ideas and philosophies get dissected and tossed aside by managers of a newer era, or, in some instances a few philosophies will be taken, assimilated and restructured in a newer image. Now, with regard to Alex Ferguson, this is impossible. You cannot copy what he does or how his teams play, for the simple fact that they change and adapt to suit the era’s tactics and squad-mapping. The teams he presided over in the early 90’s share almost no similarities with the incarnation he is creating now. If you look at the teams chronologically, the changes in composition really show the chameleonic flexibility and the very reason why Alex Ferguson has managed to not only stay at the top, but still be revered across two decades that have seen the English Premier League change absolutely from the quagmire product it was when Fergie first started winning things to what it is now as a mega-bucks beast of a league with many players fairly called the best in the world, or thereabouts, in their positions on the pitch.

Alex Ferguson made three great teams during the 90’s by my estimation.

Of course, this is subjective. After all ‘greatness’ for some is only gleaned through domestic and European dominance combined, for others, it is domestic dominance first and foremost. For me, ‘greatness’ comes in stages for a club. There’s usually a beginning, a middle and an end to an era, and all parts should be regarded as such. The common denominator tends to be continued success relevant to the periods of time being talked about. With us, for example, the early 90’s announced us, the mid 90’s consolidated our position and by the late 90’s we had won a European Cup and beaten the de facto best teams in the world in succession to do so, hence my structuring of these as our great sides during Fergie’s reign.

1992-1995​

The 1st great side.​

By hook or crook, we’re taking those points.

Code:

---------------------Schmeichel-----------------------------------------------
-------------Pallister---------Bruce(c)---------------------------------------
Parker-------------------------------------Irwin-------------------------------
------------------Ince--------Keane----------------------------------------
Kanchelskis-------------------------------Giggs------------------------------
-----------------------------Cantona------------------------------------------
-------------------Hughes-----------------------------------------------------   [/center]

This side remains my favourite.

From the technical aspect, this side is the poorest of the three greater sides Ferguson has overseen, but by the same token, this is undoubtedly the hardest, most aggressive and intimidating one of the lot. I’ve had a few debates on this site pertaining to this hardness and the fact that for its time, this side was utterly perfect in its composition and I highly doubt any of the players we’ve had in the other sides would have gotten into this one; considering the dire pitches, the raw aggression and ferocity of the league back then, you needed more warriors than technicians, and that’s what we had.

One problem many newer fans have with this side when looking at it retrospectively is in not understanding what the ‘EPL’ was at the time this side was put together. It wasn’t very good! The European ban imposed on English clubs from 1985 through to 1990 for hooliganism and tragedies made the league insular and the imports that would come to this country tended to either be exiles from their own domestic leagues or, they were cheaper buys that the elite Italian league, which was the number one league at that time, simply didn’t want. La Liga was also quite strong, with Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ in full effect playing the kind of football that quite literally did not exist in England during the early 90’s.

The atmosphere back then was also very, very different to what it is now. Football was not a family sport and still had negative elements of the 80’s at grounds across the country. It was not a commercially saleable global package nor did it have any razzmatazz to it whatsoever to advertise it to nations who weren’t already hardcore followers of the game. The crowds were much more volatile and could get away with a fair few chants you’d be hard-pressed to hear in the top-flight now. It was edgy and very much a time for men to get the stresses of a week out of their system during a match featuring their team.

Black players had to put up with far more racial abuse and the foreigners would also be targeted purely for the fact they were different and such things were rarely reported by the press, whereas now that would not only be highlighted by the media but the club and its stewards would do something about it well before it got out of hand to the point the media would investigate.

In the here and now a foreign player will look at offers from England and give them the time of day if the right clubs come in for them. Back then, enticing a Van Basten, a Roberto Baggio, a Romario, a Stoichkov and so on would have been met with laughter, disdain or both. With this in mind, the considerations for a foreign player coming here were completely different and probably revolved around many of them watching English football during their childhood in the 70’s or early 80’s – they certainly weren’t coming here with aspirations of world stardom, nor with expectation of European Cup success.

Perhaps sentimentality blinds a little. This is the side that helped the rest of the country grow the seedlings of hate towards us and then nurture them into what we saw by the time the second great side emerged. Do you know why that happened? It happened because this team was a nasty one in every sense of the word; a hard, aggressive, mean and menacing collective. What I loved about this side was the fact we were coming to take points by hook or crook. Like a playground bully doing his daily rounds, we demanded points like the proverbial lunch money ‘or else.’

If there was ever a United side close to what lays in the angrier more combustible side of the Scotsman it was this one. They would snarl, they would argue amongst themselves, they would throw temper tantrums and they would endear you to them by the simple fact they cared so much. There are so many fan favourites in this side; led by Eric who was instantly loved across the board. We would fly out of the traps from the first minute of a game until the last and by the end of the 90 you could guarantee mudded kits, one or both from Roy Keane and Paul Ince to have blown a gasket that would make Wayne Rooney’s fits of rage look tame, for Ryan Giggs, Lee Sharpe or Andrei Kanchelskis to have raped the opposition down the flanks at least five times during a half and for Eric or Mark ‘Sparky’ Hughes to have done something or other that pacified an entire stadium such was its majesty.

Eric Cantona is perhaps the prime example of a player who kind of stumbled into English football as a punishment for being an uncontrollable rebel in his French homeland. One who was probably going to be jettisoned should he not leave of his own accord. The aggression and passion of the English league was custom-made for him, and it came with none of the restriction of expression or rigid tactical discipline a player could expect in Serie A or the expectation of technical excellence and composure La Liga demanded – Eric was free to be himself and play as he wanted whilst being rivalled for technique by maybe three players in the entire league at that time, those players being: Paul Gascoigne before he left for Italy, Matthew Le Tissier at Southampton and an aging John Barnes at Liverpool. This made him a player to watch well before you factor in the tangibles of success and triumph and his unique intangibles.

My most outstanding memory of this side was of the camaraderie they had between them. They were in it together and if you attacked one member of this side, you were basically making yourself fair game to the more volatile members of the team (which was more than half of the xi) for the remainder of a match. Teams we played knew this, and it afforded our wingers, who are the fastest pairing I’ve ever seen down any side’s wings, a fair and freer pass than they could have dreamt of in the later sides - who were reduced to one or two enforcers at most (this side had five of them at the least! and a few wild cards in the likes of Cantona and even Pallister when the mood or a situation bothered them to the point they would lash out).


For the time this team was built, the qualities needed to compete in this league were:

1) Bottle – to stand up to the innumerable hacks in the league
2) The willingness to fight for one another.
3) The heart to keep on picking yourselves up (figuratively)
4) To actually be a good side.

I put the good side at fourth in importance for that time because unlike now, ‘the best’ side was guaranteed nothing if it couldn’t fight head-on with the numerous teams waiting to kick seven bells out of them come game time. Referees did not call fouls in the same way they do now. The likes of a young, wild Roy Keane and a snarling Paul Ince managed to stay on the pitch many a time where they would most likely see red instantly nowadays and a lot of incidents were played on from that would be immediately called back for the foul now.

One of the things I always wonder about is if all of Fergie’s great sides played one another, which would come out on top. And I’ll say that although this side was the most volatile and aggressive, their combination of pace, power and raw bloody mindedness as well as their killer instinct would be my favourite to win every single time, referee permitting of course.

I would strongly urge those of you who haven’t seen any matches that this side played back then to have a look around for a torrent or catch a ‘Phoenix from the flames’ game that MUTV or other network providers show from time to time.

As I’m trying to draw a picture of the climate of the time so a feel for the team can be better understood, I feel I should also point out that plain old Alex Ferguson as he was back then, was also at his most tempestuous at this time. His team were a mirror image of the man and I can imagine this wasn’t far off how the game was for him as a player. It certainly held some of his ideals dear any road. Unlike the crestfallen Alex Ferguson seen in the late 80’s whose truer personality was subdued by the myriad of problems and angst of an underachieving and unsuccessful team who was simply trying to keep himself in a job, the Alex Ferguson that emerged in the early 90’s was displaying many elements of his character that make it easy for me to write about in future instalments. This was the Fergie from which many a cliché about his overall personality was forged.

One of the key considerations of this team is that from midfield to defence it was perfect for a 4-4-2. Even the strike pairing held elements of the two-man partnership dear. If Hughes didn’t run the line, he certainly enabled his wingers to run as far down the lines as they wanted because once Hughes decided to shield and hold up the ball, it was only ever going to go to another red shirt, he also had the unique ability to play good passes to an outlet whilst under intense pressure, which was invaluable to us.

I’ve not seen a better holder-of-the-ball whilst shielding it than Mark Hughes at any level of the game nor amongst the all-time greats. Kenny Dalglish was superb at it also, but once Hughes planted his feet and hunched his body into what was a trademark of his, he would not be dispossessed and given his superior height and weight advantages over Dalglish, it meant he could shield the ball against much heavier and taller centre-backs with consummate ease. As simple a tactic as it was, it enabled Fergie to base an entire attack around Hughes whenever needed and it brought us a tremendous amount of success as it allowed both wingers to run past the strikers or onto a released ball, it allowed Cantona to hover ominously for a lay-off in that pocket of space between opposing centre-backs and the central midfielders in front of them and it allowed the young Roy Keane to expend some of his indefatigable energy resources getting into the box assured as he was that if Hughes saw him, he would be able to play him into positions that would cause the opposition damage enough times to make such energy-sapping runs worthwhile.

Paul Ince would also join the attack, but was often seen to be behind Keane, or they’d take it in turns to make the run past Hughes. With Bruce well and ready to join an attack late if a cross was coming in, we’d often have only Pallister in our own half! Irwin and Parker would always make the second wave, but could rarely overlap because the wingers were like lightening and would attack without pause or hesitation simultaneously once we had the ball! As an attacking force you could see our entire team sans Schmeichel and Pallister in the opposition half at times wantonly abandoning defensive duties in pursuit of a goal. It mattered not whether it was a goal to bring us back into a game we were losing or if it was a goal to add more to the tally against a team whom we had already battered into submission – this side was always looking for more even when the game was won, the 9-0 demolition of Ipswich Town in 1995 being their finest achievement in this regard as well as the 4-0 battering of Chelsea in the FA Cup final of 1994.

The main objective of this team on the attack was to stretch sides we faced as far apart as humanly possible and give Eric more time and space in which to work his magic, which he was of course only too happy to oblige. It is from this team that many fans who have seen Fergie’s sides from the beginning became accustomed and conditioned to the dual-winged 4-4-2 that attacked with all that it had. For so many of these fans any current system in which we play conservatively is almost incomprehensible and almost always dismissed as cowardice.

Our back-line was not without error. Technically they weren’t a sound bunch. Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister and Paul Parker were not the greatest of ball-playing footballers and outside of doing the right and basic thing in most instances, namely clearing balls from the danger areas immediately and being absolutely rock-solid in the air, we could be gotten at by sides who could circumvent the minefield of a midfield (usually on the counter) where Ince (to Fergie’s chagrin) had disobeyed orders and taken himself further up-field than instructed thus leaving us with no anchorman in the centre of midfield. Fortunately for us, Peter Schmeichel was going about announcing himself as something special well before a consensus would concur and with him between the sticks we had a final barrier for opposing sides to get past if most of the men in front of him were not in position, which enabled the very strong partnership of Bruce and Pallister to re-establish their bearings if they had been bested. As a unit our backline was very strong and very comfortable up against the English defences of the time. At higher levels questions could be asked of them that they couldn’t answer, however, the 0-4 battering at the Nou Camp to Barcelona of 1994 where all four of our outfield defence played without Schmeichel behind them, being the most poignant evidence, though it must be said that our inexperience in Europe against the elite at this time was painfully exposed and at least partly culpable for this.

The biggest trump card this defence has over any of the other great sides of the 90’s is in terms of goal-scoring and offensive-ended contributions. Between Steve Bruce and Denis Irwin we were assured as many as ten league goals a season between 1992 and 1994/95. Of course, in this era the league campaign was forty-two games long and not thirty-eight, but even still, Irwin was a dangerous set piece specialist who had a solid delivery or finish to offer be it from a corner, a free kick (of which he was the chief taker) or from the penalty spot (where he shared the duty with Cantona, since Bruce gave up the job in 1991 where he scored nineteen goals! With eleven of those being penalty kicks) Denis was a serious and consistent threat.

Anything anything at all served in the air and inviting a player brave or stupid enough to put his head where goal-keepers hands often refused, let alone foreheads of outfield players, was Bruce’s domain. He broke his nose on numerous occasions in this very way. His goals were often invaluable to us. Two he scored in the nail-biting first title-winning campaign of the 1992/93 season against a Sheffield Wednesday side we were losing 0-1 to with only four minutes of the ninety remaining were perhaps his most memorable. He scored the first with a magnificent header and the second deep into the seven minutes! of stoppage time that horrid game had coaxed up.

Bruce quickly announced himself as the most dangerous aerial defender in the league. His bravery (or foolhardiness) in the air was unmatched and we reaped great benefits from corners time and time again because of Steve Bruce’s goal-scoring exploits. His strike-rate for a centre-back is truly phenomenal (he left us having scored 36 league goals and 51 goals total! You have to again bear in mind we’re talking about a centre-back here.)

Perhaps the most outstanding features of this side could be found in our talisman, Eric Cantona, our right wingers: Lee Sharpe and Andrei Kanchelskis, and a young wiry whippet of a left winger called Ryan Giggs.

In Eric, we had a player who was ushering an entire league into a new era with a flair and arrogance to his game England didn’t usually see in league stars of that era or the one prior to it. His decisive plays, his moments of sheer, unadulterated brilliance as well as his total control of the ball, which let us know very early on that nothing he did was a fluke, gave this team an edge and a self-belief as well as an internal fire that saw us storm through games and tests to the point where it was simply uncharacteristic of any Manchester United side since the great ones of the 60’s. With Eric, a whole club’s psychology changed. A champion had arrived and in him, allayed to a brilliantly constructed team for which he was the perfect cherry on top, we went about putting markers down from initially being seen as a team to beat to the team to beat before this first great side was disbanded.

Ask most United fans who could appreciate this team in its entirety what they think of it and you’ll most likely be met with dreamy eyes and fond recollections of their exploits. For me, this side encapsulated what Manchester United and the Red Devil symbol was all about. And if I wasn’t already a supporter, this side would have done it for me even if I didn’t have the ties that I do. As it was, they made me fall in love with the club all over again. They brought me my happiest ever memories as well with both the league-winning campaign of 1992/93 and Hughes’ injury time saviour shot against Oldham in the FA Cup Semi Final of 1994 that forced the replay, which is one of my most, if not the most treasured memory in my time following the club.

It is my personal belief that it was this team and this way of playing that secured Fergie’s tenure here and made him irreplaceable. This team oozed character, more readily associated fan favourites and cult heroes than any other he has resided over and with that cult status he was given a platform and the full confidence of the men upstairs to do what he ultimately envisioned, or so it seemed. It wouldn’t have been difficult for the club to use him, and then drop him off in favour of a bigger name if they had chosen to do so, but his way, no, his ways, had endeared him to the masses by then… until… he decided he’d break up this side and bring in.. ‘The Kids’


Notes

Roy Keane played at right-back many times in this era, particularly in the 1994/95 campaign (see Paul Parker).
Andy Cole arrived in 1995, and was a peripheral member of the first great side.
Brian McClair would field next to Paul Ince regularly in central midfield and was a fixture in the first great side. McClair actually fielded 35 times in the 1994/95 campaign and at least 90% of that was in central midfield. He also fielded in all 42 games of the 1992/93 league winners campaign, but as the ’94 side is consider the great side, Keane is shown in the starting xi at central midfield.
Lee Sharpe could and did play both wings as needed at this time.
Bryan Robson left us in 1994, he featured in this side at times playing 17 league games in total during its tenure.
Paul Parker was consumed by injuries by the start of the 1994/95 campaign and his role in the team was non-existent (see Roy Keane), but he was a solid and permanent fixture prior to that.
Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and David Beckham saw sporadic time in the league by the 94/95 campaign.
Denis Irwin could play both full-back positions effortlessly.

Fergie's record with the 1st great side

92/93 : League winners
93/94 : League winners, FA Cup winners - double winners
94/95 : Runner-up to Blackburn Rovers, FA Cup runner up to Everton losing 1-0

Trophies:

2 x Premier League
1 x FA Cup

Point accumulation:

League

Year P W D L F A Pts

92/93 - 42 24 12 6 67 31 84
93/94 - 42 27 11 4 80 38 92
94/95 - 42 26 10 6 77 28 88


16 league losses over three seasons
33 league draws over three seasons
77 league wins from 126 games
264 points accumulated from a possible 378



1995-1998​

The 2nd Great Side.​

“You can’t win anything with kids”

Code:

-------------------Schmeichel--------------------------------------------------------------
-------------Pallister---------Bruce/May/Berg------------------------------------------
Neville------------------------------------Irwin-------------------------------------------
---------------Keane(c)**-----Butt/Scholes-------------------------------------------------
Beckham------------------------------Giggs----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------Cantona(c)*/ Scholes -----------------------------------
-------------------Cole/Solskjaer--------------------------------------------------------[/center]

* Captain until retirement.
** Captain after Cantona retired.

Ferguson the man only once bowed to public opinion with a player here. He could not get rid of Bryan Robson when he found him to be so influential across the board at a time he himself was despised in relative terms. But he had no such qualms about gutting one great side to make way for his wunderkinds and usher in the second part of what was a truer plan to become a force not only in England, but also in Europe.

My dad never really forgave Ferguson for getting rid of Ince and Hughes. I do remember crying when I heard the news that Ince and Hughes were to be sold as both were genuine embodiments of everything I held dear about the club during that period. As well as being absolute warriors for us, they typified the mood of so many people at that time. Ince was an overseer in so many things we won in Fergie’s early years and his sale genuinely felt like a betrayal. Indeed, the calls for Fergie’s head by some supporters may sound far-fetched now but at that time it was like ripping the soul out of the team. Ince, although he called himself the The Guv’nor really was the driving force he arrogantly, or confidently proclaimed himself to be. I didn’t know how we would ‘survive’ without him and I can remember the pit of emotions his sale brought about as if it happened yesterday.

Hughes was my direct personal hero as one of our club’s players along with Bryan Robson specifically when I was growing up. Hughes was just spectacular to me because his goals were often of sublime technique, pure strength and total control. He was solid, just rock-solid as a player and I always, always felt he could pull something special out of the bag when the team needed it. He, for me, is the biggest clutch player I’ve seen at the club in my time, not Robson, not Giggs, not Keane, not Rooney, Ronaldo, Scholes or Schmeichel, but Mark Hughes! It felt like a bereavement when he was sold. And I did try ever-so-hard to never get so attached to players as I was to Sparky, Ince and Robson; with such attachment comes far too much emotional despair should they be sold. Hughes being sold left me a bit lost. Whereas Ince was on the up and reaching his prime (which made it even more baffling he was sold!) Hughes could probably fairly be said to be on a downward slope. I had thought and expected him to retire in our colours, if I’m honest, and I couldn’t believe he was having that taken away from him. I think that’s the closest I personally got to hating Fergie. He generates all kinds of emotions in people and that was the closest he got to evoking a genuine loathing from me. I held that sentiment for years until reading Fergie’s take on the situation in his auto-biography ‘Managing My Life’ in which he said that it was Sparky who had asked to leave and if he had his way the player would have stayed.

What was funny about ‘The Kids’ though is that the rumours I had heard was that they were all ‘special’ I do remember speaking to one guy at that time who was full of optimism when most fans thought our ‘era’ was already coming to an end. He spoke, and I thought he must be retarded. My melodrama of the time went something along the lines of: ‘we’ve just lost Paul Ince (the best midfielder in England) and Mark Hughes (a domestic god). We’d need Dunga and Romario to replace them! As well as Overmars to match the pace we’d just lost in Kanchelskis!’ The guy had earmarked Nicky Butt to make losing Ince look like a blessing and had told me about a lad called David Beckham with a wand of a right foot. His greatest praise had been reserved for a ‘young red-headed lad who would take the league by storm’. As you would, I thought most of his comments to be plain dumb. But I do remember never dismissing them absolutely. We still had some good players and they’d not let these kids mess up the team too much! With hindsight, I barely remember the debut season of these kids, which was the season before this where they were all seen in glimpses, most fans of the time would be hard-pressed to recall with clarity how these kids played when they had the chances the season prior, unless of course said fan had a genuine interest in our youth prospects regardless.

One of the first things that happened with Paul Ince gone was that Roy Keane completely and utterly took over the midfield. It was said by some at the time that Roy was starting to become a better player than Ince – I never saw it like that. They were a dynamic, super snarling duo, who I’d never have dreamt of pitting against each other – so perhaps I was oblivious to this, if it was indeed the case. I do remember that this was the time Roy became Alex Ferguson mark II. Eric was never ever an embodiment of our manager. He was far too much his own man, and when Eric was enraged literally anything could happen. With Keano, all anger was directed into a concentrated, enemy-seeking laser. He wasn’t like Ince, and I think the 1995/96 season really helped me see Keane in a truer light as his own man. If Ferguson did one thing right irrespective of whether the kids would succeed at the club, it was in releasing every last shackle from Roy’s back and quite literally unleashing a beast upon the league. Having got to kind of understand the more basic layers of Fergie’s thinking through his own books and interviews retrospectively, it did become clear to me that this was something he had purposely done and that in Roy he saw not only Eric’s successor but the player he would build an entire dynasty around.

An attribute that really began to change from this team to the last great one was in the technical acumen of the incumbents. The league was changing. Slowly but surely, more technically skilled foreigners were finding their way to these shores. The likes of Jurgen Klinsmann, Denis Bergkamp, Gianfranco Zola, David Ginola, Faustino Asprilla and the great Ruud Gullit were starting to dot around the league and Fergie, ever adroit, was already on to the changes taking place. Out went a lot of the aggression the last side had. Parker, Ince and Hughes between them, that’s three, well two and a half enforcers (Parker was more a pest and haranguer of wingers) from eleven players removed from a side! It became apparent, quickly, that these kids would rather play you off the park than retaliate in kind to a wrong. The side was never soft, they could still dish out a decent helping of punishment if necessary, but we did cease to be up there as one of the outwardly hardest teams in the league at that point.

David Beckham’s right foot did not take long to announce itself to the masses and his crosses were first met with wonderment, but soon got taken for granted. His delivery was beyond special – he was the best crosser of the ball in the world, and I think only Luis Figo, Christian Ziege (at Bayern and for Germany) and Andy Brehme matched or even came close to his perfection on crosses throughout the whole of the 90’s. What I felt always amazed crowds that witnessed his game and never got taken for granted was his ability to hit a long pass. It wasn’t long before it was said with absolute certainty that Beckham was the best aerial passer in the league and it became part of an ever-growing reservoir of attributes Fergie could pick from amongst his charges.

At times we would use Beckham as something of a quarter-back with Giggs and Scholes scuttling into attacking positions right over the other side of the pitch and Beckham hitting them with effortlessly perfect weighted passes. This was not long-ball football, which is basically hoofing the ball into the general area of the most shirts for your side or hitting the target man who uses raw, brute strength and size to fend off the opposition. This was pass after pass placed perfectly to the feet of on-rushing attackers. Beckham’s free kicks soon became a world-renowned aspect of his game to the point where sides were afraid of conceding across the ‘D’ because it was almost as bad as felling a player to concede a penalty such was Beckham’s accuracy with a dead ball at that time in his career.

Perhaps the biggest single change between this great side and the one the preceded it was in the goal productivity of the midfield. The numbers shot up as we had four solid contributors across the midfield who were a threat in their own inimitable way whenever their area of expertise was called upon. No part of this midfield was similar. Each player had a distinct style and way to hurt the opposition and as such, it was impossible for them to ‘get in each other’s way’ simply because Ryan Giggs could not in a million years pass or cross like David Beckham, nor could Beckham run at the pace, or with the dribbling or dynamism of Giggs. Paul Scholes could not tackle, was not athletic and his engine had to be conserved. Roy Keane had the energy of two men, and the fire and the drive of three, but he could not score goals or exploit goal-scoring situations in anything like the manner Paul Scholes could, so they got along like a house on fire. There was never a need for one player to hold his run or change his intent because there was no other player who could do what another in the midfield was about to do. This was quite different to the first great side in which both wingers were identical in intent, pace and direction and both central midfielders could easily do the job of their partner. In this side, whilst it was considerably slower as a midfield, the parts blended so superfluously and so effortlessly would the ball move, that at times the midfield as a collective looked far faster than the first great side, which relied on the wingers for carriage and for the rest of the team to fall in chasing their tails.

Paul Scholes is a player my dad has always adored. As the game was already starting to change (the fatties of the 70’s and 80’s were being phased out) this little, non-athletic player who was all technique and cunning really did stand out. Although I’ve put it to my dad that Scholes couldn’t have emerged without Ince being sold (which would make his grudge against Fergie for selling Ince redundant) he’s never directly ceded the point saying Scholes could have easily become the successor to Eric at support striker with Ince and Keane behind them. Scholes is the kind of player much older fans will appreciate well before younger ones will. ‘Paul Scholes scores goals’ quickly became the prefix, but if you asked my dad or a number of older fans the prefix would be: ‘Paul Scholes reads play, links play and does the simple things to perfection whilst making the difficult things look very easy before he scores goals’ and I have to admit it took me a time to appreciate such nuance beings as I was raised on Robson who had the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the forceful and obvious style that drew you to him as a whole, then being conditioned to the energy and force of will of the Ince-Keane pairing. Scholes was the antithesis of such players. He was elusive, cunning, slow (by comparison), lacking stamina and athletism, but as an actual footballer? Only Robbo of the early-mid 80’s came close to the overall attacking game Scholes had at that time.

Another obvious element of this side was the seamless chemistry throughout its departments. The team was, at that time, the most superfluous and effective in the league given Newcastle’s inability to cross the finishing line in 1st and Arsene Wenger’s vision for Arsenal being in its fledgling stage. It was with this team that Alex Ferguson became “Guv’nor” of Manchester United Football Club, and it was with this side and his bold and seemingly foolhardy decisions to offload the old for the new, that Fergie’s word became almost unquestionable. ‘In Fergie we trust’ was a mantra that couldn’t really be argued with amongst the sane and the grateful, by now even the opposing fans knew for certain we were here to stay.

Eric’s decision to call time on his career was a shock to us all. I can’t pretend Eric was ever one of my absolute favourites at the club. But for what he did for us I will remain eternally grateful. Alex Ferguson has had many visions of what he wanted this club to be and become. It is absolutely imperative that Eric is held in the highest regard for the cataclysm that took place throughout the 90’s: the first league title in 26 years, the absolute arrogant self-belief he instilled in not only the players but the fans (to become a giant, you have to believe yourself to be one,) the disdain he had for defeat or failure, the melding of skills with will to win and bottle, the nurturing of an entire army of kids who idolised him and went on to use his faith in them to become great players in their own right, the appetite for taking challenges on directly whilst unifying a crowd and a team. All of this was down to Eric just as much as the manager who had the confidence in his own managerial skill to harness such a brilliant and charismatic vessel to push that first team on to heights unknown. Lest we forget, we were getting a player who had just done the exact same for our bitter rivals, Leeds United, just a few miles down the road where he helped them to a league title at our expense.

Whereas Roy Keane was a ‘stage two player’ in Fergie’s bigger picture, Eric was the genesis and it is through him that an entire generation of stumps in the club’s history grew into Giant Oaks. Indeed, if this were some kind of Terminator movie re-enacted where we needed a John Conner assassinated to stop a revolutionary chain of events, if the Terminator couldn’t snuff out Ferguson directly the next best thing would be Eric, such was his influence over everything.. Contrary to popular belief, Cantona laid the train tracks, made the train stations, set the destinations for the route, picked up Roy and Paul and plopped them on the tracks, sat back and marvelled at his work. Cantona, all things considered, is the most important signing Fergie ever made. I may baulk at his ranking as an actual player in our annuls (he’s around 9th for me) but in terms of reinvigorating an entire club, he certainly wears the title of Eric the King with impunity.


It was this side, for the most part, that won us two consecutive league titles and one that marked this side as a domestic great given we accumulated two FA Cups whilst contributing the second half of a ‘double-double,’ which is back-to-back league titles and FA Cups. Although there was a gap of a season between this achievement (1994 and 1996) it is still widely acknowledged that this was a double-double as no double was won in-between the achievement. A double-double is a feat not matched in the entire history of English football by any other club!

Fergie's record with the 2nd great side

95/96 : League winners FA Cup winners – double winners
96/97 : League winners
97/98 : Runner-up to Arsenal

Trophies:
2 x Premier League
1 x FA Cup

Point accumulation:

League

Year P W D L F A Pts

95/96 - 38 25 7 6 73 35 82
96/97 - 38 21 12 5 76 44 75
97/98 - 38 23 8 7 73 26 77

18 league losses over three seasons
27 league draws over three seasons
69 league wins from 126 games
234 points accumulated from a possible 342


1999 - 2001​

The 3rd Great Side.​

Arise, Sir Alex.

Code:

------------------------Schmeichel--------------------------------------------------------------
---------------Johnsen-------------Stam--------------------------------------------------------
G.Neville--------------------------------------Irwin-------------------------------------------
-------------------Keane--------Scholes--------------------------------------------------------
Beckham--------------------------------------Giggs-------------------------------------------
----------------------------------Yorke/Sheringham------------------------------------------
----------------------Cole/Solskjaer----------------------------------------------------------- [/center]

The emergence of the strange ‘no-name’ Frenchman who came from Japanese league football really got Fergie’s back up. His name was Arsene Wenger and he saw us barren for the 1997-1998 season. We won nothing, not something we were accustomed to and certainly a direct challenge to Ferguson to raise his and the club’s bar to yet another level.

It was at this time that Ferguson really bit into the European apple and took as big a bite of it as his jaws would allow. By now his eyes were firmly on the European prize and he considered his fledglings old enough and mature enough in their individual games for us to only need minor adjustments as a side. In came the Dutchman Jaap Stam, the veteran head and calming influence of Teddy Sheringham and the pace of Norwegian centre-back Ronnie Johnsen, to replace the outgoing Gary Pallister. And an unknown Norwegian lad with the youngest looking face ever seen on a 20 something, was brought in from Molde FC named Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The team was set, the football had again changed, and this time out we had a partnership upfront that was as impressive as our midfields had been throughout the earlier part of the 90’s, Dwight Yorke, the smiling Trinidadian who many had doubted even before he had played a game for us, emerged and not only was his partnership with Andy Cole good, it was absolutely devastating. Not only that, Yorke proved to be the effortless link-man we needed to unhinge various styles of football in Europe and he made us un-containable on the domestic front as we romped home to three consecutive league titles during this side’s tenure.

It was at this time that Fergie’s perfect vision was played out in real-time before his and our eyes. The team simply clicked, and it was this team that was the most complete of all the ones seen during the 90’s. There was nothing, absolutely nothing at least one member of the team couldn’t do.

Let me explain.

In the 1st great team, there was no striker who could run the line, there was no winger who could cross with absolute perfection and there wasn’t a central midfielder regarded as an absolute attacking threat across the Continent. In the 2nd great team there was a lack of pace at left centre-back and we had a weak side in regard to counters. If a team played the diagonal between Irwin’s flank and the left-sided centre-back the back line could be stretched and pulled asunder by a skilful enough team, this was exposed routinely in Europe. In the 3rd great team, however, things were different. Yes we made mistakes at the back, but they weren’t routine, predictable or a definite flaw readily exploited by the wilier tacticians seen in Europe. This meant planning a strategy against us wasn’t so formulaic – anything could and did happen in our games during this period. We conceded goals frequently, contrary to popular folklore, this team was not solid at the back nor did it try to be. The mantra by now was truly ‘if they score one, we will score two. If they score two, we will score three’ and as long as we won the game at the end of the ninety we simply did not care how many goals we conceded. Well, that’s true of most of the fans of the time anyway. The manager probably pulled his hair out on more than one occasion.

Gary Neville and David Beckham had matured as a two-direction, symbiotic pairing who were strong whether defending or attacking. Irwin and Giggs were settled and had the chalk and cheese of relationships in the team in that Irwin was the controlled, sensible and disciplined ice who was ever dependable and rarely made a mistake at full-back, and Giggs was our explosive, all-thrills dribbling and crucial goal scoring maestro darting up and down, in and out of the left wing slot creating havoc for the very best teams out there be it in Europe or on the domestic scene. There was no doubt at all that Giggs was the fire in the partnership. The midfield pairing of Scholes and Keane was perfect for the era. Yorke and Cole had an understanding that was at an all-time level during the treble-winning season, and Johnsen and Stam were perfectly complementary in that Johnsen was the calmer more composed and cleaner player of the two and Stam, before his injury was a revelation as he was both a hard-man as well as a pacy all-round centre-back. The team, as a bunch of individuals, as a sum of parts or as a whole was perfect for the era and has to stand as Fergie’s greatest composition to date not only for the football played, but the achievements and entry they gave us into the elite of the world game.

This was the team Fergie could send out and expect the opposition to have their hands so full offensively that we could press home any advantage. This was also the side which could go a goal or two down and expect to still win many a game entered with maybe five or ten minutes left on the clock such was their ability to solve a defensive problem with the offensive barrages we were famed for in this incarnation. This was the side that only needed to smell blood in shallow waters to attack with the fervour of a hungry shark and many sides both domestically and in Europe, capitulated over the 90 in the face of such pressure even when seemingly having the upper-hand and a goal or two advantage with less than half of a half left to play.

One of the biggest advantages this side had over those that came before it was that the ‘three-foreigner rule’ in Europe for British teams had been lifted by this time and it enabled us to create not only a level of chemistry, but a level of team experience we’d never been privy to during Fergie’s previous ventures into Europe. One of the killer blows for Fergie’s earlier European aspirations with his other great sides of the 90’s was that he had to go into a scene much tougher than the domestic competition with a side inferior and more unfamiliar with each other than we saw on a weekly basis in England! Imagine having to pick three from Schmeichel, Cantona, Irwin, Keane, Kanchelskis and Giggs whilst leaving the remainder out of the starting xi and you get a picture of how devastating that rule was to us until it was abolished. Fergie himself has said that the three-foreigner rule had robbed us of a chance to claim the European Cup with our 1994 double-winning team. In the third great side we had no such restriction and I believe it to be the reason we could truly forge a side that was ready to be announced as the best in Europe if not the world for a time.

The exploits of this side are many and varied. Nearly all of them are famous. From the 3-5 victory at White Hart Lane in 1999, to the exploits of Ryan Giggs at Villa Park and the infamy of that night on the 26th of May 1999, this side has done and won enough things in spectacular fashion to be recognised throughout the annuls of the British game forever. They have achieved something that no other club could or has done and earned almost universal praise for doing it in an all-guns blazing fashion whilst not conceding an inch against any opponent faced in any competition they were involved in.

I don’t feel I can do them detailed justice in an online piece, nor shall I try, as that’s going to take up far more space than I feel should be placed on a forum.

Fergie's record with the 3rd great side

98/99 : League winners, FA Cup winners, European Cup winners & Intercontinental Cup winners – ‘treble’ winners
99/00 : League winners
00/01 : League winners

Trophies:

3 x Premier League
1 x FA Cup
1 x European Cup
1 x Intercontinental Cup

Point accumulation:

League

Year P W D L F A Pts

98/99 - 38 25 7 6 73 35 82
99/00 - 38 21 12 5 76 44 75
00/01 - 38 23 8 7 73 26 77

12 league losses over three seasons
28 league draws over three seasons
74 league wins from 114 games
250 points accumulated from a possible 342 ​

By the time this side had done the business, Manchester United were a brand, a worldwide brand and the coffers were full due to our success in marketing as well as on the field. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get one of two distinct answers to whether this was a good or a bad thing. Those intoxicated by success and honestly only wanting the very best for us would welcome the newer fans and the globalisation of us as a club as well as the monies it enabled us to spend on realising future dreams. Then you’ll have the other side who felt they lost touch with the club who were no longer called Manchester United Football Club and became ‘just’ Manchester United on all new official club motifs and even the crest. For them the club was no longer about the fans but had become a new animal, a giant like it was in the 50’s and 60’s, but with bigger ideas and an ambition that would slowly squeeze more of the working men out of attending games due to price hikes and the repackaging of the game to a larger, more passive audience, which inevitably meant a more wealthy breed of fan who in some cases did not want to identify with the chanting and revelry of a match.

I mention this because for some Ferguson himself ushered this era in. Whether he did so inadvertently is a point for debate, but there is no doubt about it at all. The levels of success we achieved and the subsequent demands from the FA for us to ‘represent’ the league by going all the way to South America to participate in the inaugural World Club Championship competition, which pits all Continental Cup winners against each other over a number of games, during the English league’s domestic season and thus forced us to forfeit our chance to defend the FA Cup by way of simply not being able to field a team or have a Plenipotentiary do so in Fergie’s absence, sowed the seeds and split the United supporters into two camps; the traditionalists and the revolutionaries who were ready and willing to ride whatever crest of a wave this side and Fergie would take us on no matter how many traditions were broken in the process.

It’s hard for a manager such as ours to keep idealistic and also socialist principles in check whilst being at the helm of club openly competing with the likes of Real Madrid to be ‘top dog’ in the global market-place. To suggestions that this makes Fergie a ‘sell-out’ I would baulk, but that’s probably something for another chapter or in discussion of this one.

I can’t lie, I despise ‘treble’ talk. Every year the arrogance and flippancy of some to have the gall to mention trebles at the start of a campaign just makes me cringe. At the time that the treble was achieved it was unimaginable for a team to win all three major accolades in the same season. Even at their mightiest the Scousers could only manage the hollow, inferior version of League winners, European Cup winners and League Cup winners and even that was seen as an incredible achievement. For us to win the two great domestic prizes coveted by the élan of the division in a ‘double’ was a feat, but then to add the European Cup, the prize coveted by the élan of Europe, onto it on the 26th May 1999 was the stuff of make-believe.

Now, for any fan that started following the club after that season’s events I can understand the difficulty they would have in truly comprehending the emotions and atmosphere of such a feat, especially given that in the last three or four years the bar has been raised beyond recognition to the point where a treble is feasible and the emergence of a team that was simply bought and put together in a season or two and reasonably could achieve the treble or even a quadruple given their backing and the kind of squad it has enabled them to assemble on a whim, has the true worth of a treble diminished greatly.

Then you factor in some of the topsy-turvy events of this decade in Arsenal going unbeaten during a league campaign and Chelsea breaking all kinds of league records with machine-like efficiency and an event that happened almost a decade ago and has since become the mythical Holy Grail becomes quite trivialised, in my opinion. Our own fans coo about winning trebles with any decent winning run of games, be they won in October or even August-September time doesn’t seem to matter – apparently those are omens to win The Treble. I do find it bizarre of fans who pre-date Fergie or even those who saw the whole process from us being ‘nobodies’, to also-rans, to domestic champions, to domestic dominance and then to European Cup victory acting in that way, as if the treble holds no real value, as if we should be able to go for it every season, when surely the time to even think that way would be at the back end of April or even mid-May?


Next Chapter: The ups and downs of Fergie’s other teams.

Released: 30th November.​

 

Re: The Wise Old Fox - Part II - The Great Teams

Depends on the criteria:

You have all-time teams - those that are literally sides for the ages who go on to not only win their domestic league, but also claim the big prizes in Europe in style or in a way that'll always be remembered.

Domestic greats - Not all-timers, but completely stand-out in their own era. Probably win a double or a single league title in a way that'll be remembered by those that saw them in action.

For some, we've only had two great teams - the 1994 double winners and the 1999 treble winners. For others, we've had those two plus 'The Kids' for the feat they achieved in winning the league as a group of unknowns and consolidating us as domestically great.

I think there's degrees of greatness, though. You can't rank the 1999 team as par with the others because they won everything, beat the best of the best to do it, had all those all0time moments whilst doing so and put us on the map as a modern European giant, whereas prior to that we weren't part of the current era's elite.

So saying that, I'd say all of them were 'great' but within that there's degrees of greatness that have to be looked at in the context of the time period, whereas one side stands out as up there with the greatest representatives the English league has ever seen, the other two do not.

---

Thanks for the comments all. I'm surprised there isn't any debate/discussion though.

 

Re: The Wise Old Fox - Part II - The Great Teams

It should also be noted that without the 2nd great team, the 3rd cannot exist!

So whilst the 94 and 99 teams are by far the most outstanding, the bridge and the fact they did the double themselves, stands the middle team as a good and very important one.

 

Re: The Wise Old Fox - Part II - The Great Teams

Disparaging and condescending, how so?

Erm, I'm not sure what you're getting at or how you've reached this conclusion. Again, can you elaborate?

I'm sorry but that's not accurate. Go on any Utd forum or listen in at pubs or the banter at games and it won't take long before you hear mutterings about trebles if we're in a good or great vain of form. I definitely don't see it in the press as much as I've heard or seen it from our own fans.

I don't think you've read the parts you should read in that piece...

The very last sentence after the comma: when surely the time to even think that way would be at the back end of April or even mid-May?

which is basically what you've just said...

Will be covered in another chapter, so it's probably best for me not to say anything about it now. In fact, I'm going to release the next chapter clearing up all the other sides and such for the sake of continuity. Not sure what I'll name that chapter yet, but I feel it should come before 'The Youth'

I think you might wanna do some calculations on that score. The ins to outs expenditure of Fergie throughout the 90's was superb. Our spending, as johno said, changed after that.

Arsenal's side is a domestic great. It didn't have the longevity, but it definitely raised the bar in England and ushered in the age of obscene points totals to win the league. I think it has to be acknowledged as ground-breaking. Certainly one of the best domestic sides ever seen in England.