SPEAK TO THE NEW CHAMPIONS of England and they do not say that the title was won at Old Trafford, Highbury, or sitting on their sofas at home yesterday while Arsenal surrendered. They will tell you that it was secured at Manchester United’s Carrington training complex on a Monday morning in February, when Sir Alex Ferguson gave the speech that was to propel them unstoppably to an eighth championship in 11 years.
It seems an age away now, but, to a man, the United players had turned up for work that day with an air of wearied resignation. The belief that they might catch Arsenal had been sucked from them 48 hours earlier, when they had clambered on to the team bus after a scrappy 1-1 lunchtime draw away to Bolton Wanderers and turned on the radio.
Only 20 minutes had gone of Arsenal’s game against Manchester City at Maine Road and Arsène Wenger’s cavaliers were 4-0 up on the ground where United had suffered one of their greatest humiliations in November. Across the airwaves came a eulogy to the champions of England, who had rediscovered all their swagger. When United’s players trooped off the bus an hour of silent contemplation later, they sensed that they would spend the rest of the campaign being tossed around in Arsenal’s wake.
Of Ferguson’s attributes, the ability to inspire his squad of millionaires and serial trophy-winners remains by far his greatest and the man who had intended to retire last summer must have sensed that the ability to light the fires within his players was being put to the test. Gathering them together at Carrington that Monday morning, he summoned a phrase that has become his mantra, his war cry over the closing months of an epic struggle between two of Europe’s most accomplished managers.
“This will be your finest championship, your greatest achievement,” he told his squad. First, though, they needed to “go out and get at Arsenal”. “I don’t just mean on the pitch, but in everything you say and do,” Ferguson said. “Put pressure on them and they will crack.”
For a man who hates his players so much as giving the time of day to the media, it was an unprecedented order to go out and spread the word that United were on a charge that cocky, triumphalist Arsenal would not be able to halt. And so it proved from that moment on as United lived up to their own boasts by winning eight of the next nine games in the Barclaycard Premiership. Arsenal felt the heat and, as injuries and suspensions took their toll, the confident façade began to melt.
Instead of dropping points in tough games against Liverpool and Newcastle United, United not only emerged victorious but also scored ten goals. At the same time, Wenger’s men began the collapse that amounted to a calamitous run of nine points from a possible 21 after yesterday’s 3-2 defeat at home to Leeds United. “You can’t deny a team when they put a run together like we did,” Ferguson said yesterday as he began the celebrations to mark the “greatest achievement by this team”.
The championship was a triumph of will as much as great football, which is why Ferguson regards it as his best yet. He likes the game to be played with adventure and, in Paul Scholes and Ruud van Nistelrooy, he has had players near their peak for ten months.
The rest, though, have been fitful, with Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Roy Keane, Fabien Barthez and the entire defence all enduring periods of crisis. It is the recovery from those slumps that has made this so special for Ferguson — as well, of course, as the thrill of putting Wenger in his place. “We never gave up, that’s what got us the title,” Ferguson said. “I knew they could take a challenge, although, after the defeat at Manchester City, we had to ask: ‘Are you still hungry enough?’ When you have a lot of young men who are very rich and have had a lot of success, you have to ask them that. I never doubted them.”
If Ferguson has been the inspiration for his players, Wenger has been the man who has reignited the drive in Ferguson. It is a mighty feat for the Frenchman to have constructed a side capable of pushing United so hard, given his comparatively limited resources, but he will have to concede that finishing second represents underachievement.
Arsenal were unplayable at times this season, destroying teams in the first quarter of matches with a panache that many thought might make them champions of Europe. But a squad that had looked so much better-balanced than United’s in the autumn has been revealed as uneven when injuries and suspensions have taken their toll. The flaws in the defence were exposed once again yesterday and the absence of Patrick Vieira and Sol Campbell in recent games was more than they could bear.
Perhaps the championship can be summed up by the day the teams met at Old Trafford on December 7, when Arsenal held a six-point lead at kick-off and played like it was a cushion on which they could recline for the rest of the season. They should have gone for the kill against a United side that had Phil Neville and Juan Sebastián Verón in central midfield, but, with the exceptions of Ashley Cole and Vieira, left shrugging at a 2-0 defeat as if they could afford to throw three points away.
“You can never be sure in this league,” Ferguson said, but Arsenal were too certain of themselves. United, meanwhile, turned all those early doubts and recriminations into their greatest strength.
The Sequence
THE DEBATE ABOUT WHICH is the best English team in history — the Liverpool of the 1970s and 1980s or the Manchester United from the 1990s to the present day — is a common one, and their sequence of championship triumphs have an uncanny similarity. For 11 seasons United have matched what Liverpool achieved from 1976 onwards.
In both cases the clubs won two titles then missed out for a year, then collected two more championships before missing out one more time. They then gained three titles in a row, had one blip, but returned to secure an eighth crown in 11 years.
Should the records continue to remain the same, the good news for United’s bedraggled rivals is that only two more titles will go to Old Trafford over the next four seasons before more than a decade of drought begins.
Liverpool’s finishing positions in the league, starting with the 1975-76 season:
1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1
United’s finishing positions in the league, starting with the 1992-93 season:
1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1
BILL EDGAR
