Debate: Is United's class of 2009 superior to that of '99?

Source: Times Online

Manchester United are all but champions. They should also be red-hot favourites to retain the European title because Barcelona will be weakened by injury and suspension in both defence and attack (Daniel Alves, though notionally a right back, is best going forward because his overlaps create space for Lionel Messi). If United duly win both competitions, it will be asked if Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest are the greatest.

Indeed it will be said. It will be said that, although previous English teams had been double champions before — Liverpool in 1977 and 1984 United in 1999 and 2008 — none had repeated the feat a year later. Liverpool took the European title again in 1978, United the English in 2000. But Liverpool trailed in seven points behind Nottingham Forest in 1978 and United were soundly beaten in the Champions League quarter-finals of 2000 by Real Madrid.

So the argument for Ferguson’s present side is strong, if no stronger than that heard recently from a member of the 1999 squad: he maintained that the FA Cup, which helped to make a unique treble, should be regarded as a trump card.

To be asked to judge the respective achievements bores me. You know good football when you see it. You cannot measure the respective teams any more than you can tally the caps and announce that, of all United players, David Beckham has given the most to England, closely followed by Bobby Charlton.

The interesting aspect of comparison is what it tells us about the pace of change in football generally and Ferguson’s United in particular: in a decade, top-level football has evolved from a team game to a squad game, to the extent that I doubt that even Ferguson knows his best team, or cares. A decade ago, the experts would solemnly have pronounced that a recipe for managerial disaster. Now flexibility could be rated a distinguishing attribute of England’s leading exponent.

We saw it in January when Ferguson dropped Michael Carrick, at that stage (and maybe still) United’s player of the season, for the key Barclays Premier League fixture at home to Chelsea and we saw it again last Tuesday when Park Ji Sung and Anderson featured prominently in the attack that ended Arsenal’s European campaign. With Cristiano Ronaldo at centre forward. And Darren Fletcher, of course, in midfield; you know it is a really big match when the Scot starts, even though no one would call him a regular.

Ferguson is possibly the first master of squad rotation. He learnt from the Champions League in 1993-94 that the same players could not be used in all competitions and introduced Ryan Giggs and the Beckham generation — also featuring Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt — in the League Cup and some European matches.

With amusement, he recalled throwing in the kids against Port Vale. “A local MP complained about it in the House of Commons,” Ferguson said. “He said the Potteries public were being denied the opportunity to see the great players. What he didn’t realise was that the people were seeing even greater players — the European champions of the future.”

By 1999, when they enjoyed their finest hours, the concept of the regular was still widespread: nine players (Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Peter Schmeichel, Gary Neville, Jaap Stam, Roy Keane, Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke) made 30 league appearances or more. This season only Edwin van der Sar, Nemanja Vidic, Ronaldo and Dimitar Berbatov have reached 30, though Wayne Rooney and John O’Shea may yet. Is Carrick, then, a first-teamer? Or Fletcher, Park, Anderson or, for that matter, Giggs and Scholes? And do you think Ferguson cares? Or that many players are as bothered as Carlos Tévez about clearing the air? Tévez, by challenging Ferguson’s methods (as he has every right to do, because some players need to feel established), has rendered himself surplus.

This is not to deny that replacement was fundamental to the treble in 1999: everyone knows that Teddy Sheringham, after taking over from the injured Keane in the FA Cup Final, scored, then came on to equalise against Bayern Munich in Barcelona before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his fellow substitute, stabbed the winner. It is just that pretty well everyone is a squad player now.

Debate: Is United's class of 2009 superior to that of '99?

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