If and it's still a big if, we can win our 20th league title this year and defy the early season signs that City would romp the title, then surely the last two league victories are up there as G.O.A.T managerial league victories. How SAF inspires these players year after year is beyond me and will never be matched in football again, as someone said on his 25th anniversary "we all know SAF inspires players, but who inspires him every day" - how many other managers would see the benefit of playing and keeping Giggs and Scholes, I mean even the great Arsene Wenger belives players are past it once they hit 33 /34, another feat of SAF great managerial style. Also I love the way he signs players who want to play for the club, Nasri being the latest culprit, while he warms the city bench he missed out on the chance to play under the greatest manager of all time in a posotion he could have made his own, instead choosing a few extra quid for what? I don't want to get too carried away after todays results, but SAF has seen off Blackburn, Newcastle, Chelsea and now potentially City all who historically have had massive investments to try and overtake SAF's empire. Blackburn and Toon failed with the owner losing interest and slowly stopping to pump endless money into transfers. Would be interesting to see if Chelsea and Manchester City follow suit, but they have far more money than the english steel tycoons of old so hard to see if they would stop. To finish off I just have to say it's looking rosie for title no.20, if we can get to the finish line and hold the trophy aloft come May, every fan in the land should salute SAF for beating a money juggernaut with homegrown and academy based talent as a main nucleus of the squad, which is not only a result for MUFC but a victory for football on the whole.
Great article, though your just making me more and more worried about the day SAF retires. He is the greatest manager of all time, no doubt about that
I totally agree..hes enigmatic...the empire will crumble not based on what team you put out but if SAF is in charge or retired. i hope you win it this year than them tw@s down the road.
I don't wanna sound like a twat here or sound like i'm wumming, but this will surely be Fergerson's best title wont it? A fairly weak United team as apposed to the millions of city, the only other club Fergie would love to beat to the title more would be Liverpool, Fantastic achievement if it happens and personally i think Fergerson is the only reason this team is challanging, where would you be with an ordinary manager?
Apparently Dalglish is on the same money as Fergie. KKK may be a clown of a manager but he's tucked the Liverpool owners up brilliantly on that one.
I think it would be our greatest title triumph given that we are very much in trasition and City have a bottomless pit of money.
The amazing thing for me is the number of injuries we've had. Vidic out since December, Fletcher out since November and struggling before then, and I think Evra is our only outfield player to have not had a single injury thus far this season. Every time City don't have Toure or Kompany they struggle, and yet we have lost both our equivalents and are still right up there. Definitely one of his best if we win it, although the 2007 one is still pretty good for the way we blew past Mourinho's Chelsea side with another team that was very much in transition, although further along than this one. As for where we'd be without SAF, that would probably depend on the injuries. If we'd avoided most of them we'd still be second or third, tho' probably way behind City, but with the same number of injuries we might be struggling to make fourth.
I think it's appropriate to raise the point that if we had a different manager in charge, we'd probably have different players. Who says United wouldn't still be competing?
Spot on that. David Silva was poor today, and they flopped. Great shout with Paul Scholes i said it felt like desperation, egg on my face big time, him and Carrick are filling a big whole Fletcher left.
Carrick and Scholes can pick apart any team that gives them time and space, our problem is when teams shut us down quickly. As soon as that happens our midfield can't cope with it, and Carrick and Scholes can't play the chasing game that someone like Fletcher can.
If we win the title, I do want to see an investment in Midfield as in Europe Scholes, Giggs, Carrick jus;t don't have that cutting edge no longer, good enough for the prem but against Bilbao we looked seriously devoid of any creativity and thats for pretty much every European game this season.
