UNKNOWN: (1878 - 1892)
A.H. Albut: (1892 - 1900)
James West: (1900 - 1903)
J. Ernest Mangnall: (1903 - 1912)
John Bentley: (1912 - 1914)
John Robson: (1914 - 1921)
John Chapman: (1921 - 1926)
Lal Hilditch: (1926 - 1927) *PLAYER-MANAGER*
Herbert Bamlett: (1927 - 1931)
Walter Crickmer: (1931 - 1932)
Scott Duncan: (1932 - 1937)
Walter Crickmer: (1937 - 1945)
Matt Busby: (1945 - 1969)
Jimmy Murphy: (1958 | caretaker)
Wilf McGuinness: (1969 - 1970)
Matt Busby: (1970 - 1971 | interim)
Frank O'Farrell: (1971 - 1972)
Tommy Docherty: (1972 - 1977)
Dave Sexton: (1977 - 1981)
Ron Atkinson: (1981 - 1986)
Alex Ferguson: (1986 - 2013)
David Moyes: (2013 - 2014)
Ryan Giggs: (2014 | interim) *PLAYER-MANAGER*
Louis van Gaal: (2014 - 2016)
Jose Mourinho: (2016 - 2018)
Ole Solskjaer: (2018 - 2021)
Michael Carrick: (2021 | interim)
Ralf Rangnick: (2021 - 2022 | interim)
Erik Ten Hag: (2022 - present)

"My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch. And you can print that" - Alex Ferguson.


YOUTH SET UP:

The youth set up which Alex Ferguson set up is currently being used in two leagues, 'The FA Premier Reserve League (North)' and 'The Academy League'. Obviously these are used to separate the younger reserves and the older reserves and it´s also used to help first team players gain match fitness when just coming back from injury. It also is a way to make a bit of money when we sell the players off who are not good enough. Although some fans may criticise the vast amounts of money put into this youth set up we have had benefits come from it and although the majority of players don't make it, without this we would have had no David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Lee Sharpe, Gary and Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Wes Brown.


BIGGEST TRANSFERS:

Some of the highest priced transfers that have happened at the club are as follows:

In:

1) Paul Pogba: £89.5 million (Potentially - £93.6 million) [Juventus]
2) Antony: £80.7 million (Potentially - £85 million) [AFC Ajax]
3) Harry Maguire: £80 million [Leicester City]
4) Romelu Lukaku: £75 million (Potentially - £90 million) [Everton]
5) Jadon Sancho: £73 million [BV Borussia Dortmund]
6) Angel Di Maria: £59.7 million [Real Madrid CF]
7) Casemiro: £50.7 million (Potentially - £59.1 million) [Real Madrid CF]
8) Lisandro Martinez: £48.3 million (Potentially - £56.8 million) [AFC Ajax]
9) Fred: £47 million [FC Shakhtar Donetsk]
10) Bruno Fernandes: £46.5 million (Potentially - £67.7 million) [Sporting Lisbon]
11) Aaron Wan-Bissaka: £45 million (Potentially - £50 million) [Crystal Palace]
12) Juan Mata: £37.1 million [Chelsea]
13) Anthony Martial: £36.8 million (Potentially - £58.8 million) [AS Monaco]
14) Nemanja Matic: £35 million (Potentially - £40 million) [Chelsea]
15) Rio Ferdinand: £35.8 million [Leeds United]
16) Donny van de Beek: £34.4 million (Potentially - £38.9 million) [AFC Ajax]
17) Raphael Varane: £34.2 million (Potentially - £42.7 million) [Real Madrid CF]
18) Victor Lindelof: £30.7 million (Potentially - £39.5 million) [SL Benfica]
19) Dimitar Berbatov: £30.75 million [Tottenham Hotspur]
20) Eric Bailly: £29.8 million [Villarreal CF]
21) Ander Herrera: £28.8 million [Athletic Bilbao]
22) Luke Shaw: £27 million (Potentially - £31 million) [Southampton]
23) Wayne Rooney: £27 million (Potentially - £29.85 million) [Everton]
24) Juan Sebastián Verón: £28.1 million [SS Lazio]
25) Marouane Fellaini: £27.5 million [Everton]
26) Morgan Schneiderlin: £24 million (Potentially - £27 million) [Southampton]
27) Henrikh Mkhitaryan: £26.3 million [BV Borussia Dortmund]
28) Robin van Persie: £24 million [Arsenal]
29) Memphis Depay: £23.2 million (Potentially - £31.3 million) [PSV Eindhoven]
30) Marcos Rojo: £20.8 million (£16 million + £4.8 million Nani loan) [Sporting Lisbon]
31) Amad Diallo: £19.1 million (Potentially - £37.4 million) [Atalanta BC]
32) Ruud van Nistelrooy: £19 million [PSV Eindhoven]
33) Diogo Dalot: £19 million [FC Porto]
34) David De Gea: £17.8 million [Atletico Madrid]
35) Owen Hargreaves: £16.8 million (Potentially - £20.2 million) [FC Bayern Munich]
36) Phil Jones: £16.5 million (Potentially - £20.5 million) [Blackburn Rovers]
37) Ashley Young: £16 million [Aston Villa]
38) Antonio Valencia: £15.25 million [Wigan Athletic]
39) Daniel James: £15 million (Potentially - £18 million) [Swansea City]
40) Michael Carrick: £14 million (Potentially -  £18.6 million) [Tottenham Hotspur]
41) Daley Blind: £13.85 million [AFC Ajax]
42) Alex Telles: £13.68 million (Potentially - £14.5 million) [FC Porto]
43) Cristiano Ronaldo: £12.9 million (Potentially - £19.7 million) [Juventus]
44) Tyrell Malacia: £12.9 million (Potentially - £14.6 million) [Feyenoord]
45) Louis Saha: £12.825 million [Fulham]
46) Matteo Darmian: £12.7 million (Potentially - £14.4 million) [Torino]
47) Dwight Yorke: £12.6 million [Aston Villa]
48) Cristiano Ronaldo: £12.24 million [Sporting Lisbon]
49) Shinji Kagawa: £12 million (Potentially - £17 million) [BV Borussia Dortmund]
50) Jaap Stam: £10.6 million [PSV Eindhoven]
51) Wilfried Zaha: £10 million (Potentially - £15 million) [Crystal Palace]
52) Carlos Tévez: £10 million [MSI] ***** 2 YEAR LOAN *****
53) Facundo Pellistri: £9.1 million [Club Atletico Penarol]
54) Anderson: £8 million (Potentially - £20.4 million) [FC Porto]
55) Nani: £8 million (Potentially - £17.3 million) [Sporting Lisbon]
56) Zoran Tosic: £8 million [Partizan Belgrade]
57) Chris Smalling: £8 million (potentially £10 million) [Fulham]
58) Fabien Barthez: £7.8 million [AS Monaco]
59) Diego Forlan: £7.5 million [CA Independiente]
60) Bébé: £7.4 million [Vitória De Guimaraes]
61) Andy Cole: £7.25 million [Newcastle United]
62) Nemanja Vidic: £7.2 million [Spartak Moscow]
63) Alan Smith: £7.05 million [Leeds United]
64) Gabriel Heinze: £6.9 million [Paris Saint-Germain]
65) Bastian Schweinsteiger: £6.5 million [FC Bayern Munich]

Out:

1) Cristiano Ronaldo: £80 million [Real Madrid CF]
2) Romelu Lukaku: £74 million [Inter Milan]
3) Angel Di Maria: £44.3 million [Paris Saint-Germain]
4) Daniel James: £25 million (Potentially - £30 million) [Leeds United]
5) David Beckham: £23.5 million [Real Madrid CF]
6) Morgan Schneiderlin: £20 million (Potentially - £24 million) [Everton]
7) Jaap Stam: £16.5 million [SS Lazio]
8) Memphis Depay: £16 million (Potentially - £21.7 million) [Olympique Lyonnais]
9) Danny Welbeck: £16 million [Arsenal]
10) Daley Blind: £14 million (Potentially - £18.5 million) [AFC Ajax]
11) Chris Smalling: £13.68 million (Potentially - £18.23 million) [AS Roma]
12) Juan Sebastián Veron: £12.5 million (Potentially - £15 million) [Chelsea]
13) John Obi Mikel: £12 million [Chelsea]
14) Marouane Fellaini: £10.5 million [Shandong Luneng Taishan FC]
15) Ruud van Nistelrooy: £10.25 million [Real Madrid CF]
16) James Garner: £9 million (Potentially - £15.5 million) [Everton]
17) Andreas Pereira: £8 million (Potentially - £10 million) [Fulham]
18) Zoran Tosic: £8 million [CSKA Moscow]
19) Andy Cole: £8 million [Blackburn Rovers]
20) Gabriel Heinze: £8 million [Real Madrid CF]
21) Adnan Januzaj: £7.5 million (Potentially - £9.7 million) [Real Sociedad]
22) Javier Hernández: £7.3 million [Bayer 04 Leverkusen]
23) Giuseppe Rossi: £6.7 million [Villarreal CF]
24) Sam Johnstone: £6.5 million (Potentially - £10 million) [West Bromwich Albion]
25) Shinji Kagawa: £6.3 million [BVB Borussia Dortmund]
26) Jonny Evans: £6 million (Potentially - £8 million) [West Bromwich Albion]
27) Paul Ince: £6 million [Inter Milan]
28) Alan Smith: £6 million [Newcastle United]
29) Ben Foster: £6 million [Birmingham City]
30) Kieran Richardson: £5.5 million [Sunderland]
31) Andrei Kanchelskis: £5 million [Everton]
32) Gerard Piqué: £5 million [FC Barcelona]
33) John O'Shea: £5 million [Sunderland]
34) Ji-sung Park: £5 million (Potential fee - Initially £2 million) [Queens Park Rangers]
35) Lee Sharpe: £4.5 million [Leeds United]
36) Paddy McNair: £4.5 million [Sunderland]
37) Alexander Büttner: £4.4 million (Potentially - £5.6 million) [Dynamo Moscow]
38) Nani: £4.25 million [Fenerbahce SK]
39) Dimitar Berbatov: £4 million [Fulham]
40) Robin van Persie: £3.84 million [Fenerbahce SK]
41) Matteo Darmian: £3.6 million [Parma Calcio 1913]
42) Fraizer Campbell: £3.5 million (Potentially - £6 million) [Sunderland]
43) Wilfried Zaha: £3.25 million (Potentially - £8 million) [Crystal Palace]
44) Phil Neville: £3.2 million [Everton]
45) Karel Poborsky: £3 million [SL Benfica]
46) Tim Howard: £3 million [Everton]
47) Gabriel Obertan: £3 million [Newcastle United]
48) Michael Keane: £3 million [Burnley]
49) Tahith Chong: £1.45 million (Potentially - £4.35 million) [Birmingham City]
        

SUMMER INS / OUTS (2022/23):

IN: Antony - £80.7 million (POTENTIALLY £85 MILLION)
      Casemiro - £50.7 million (POTENTIALLY £59.1 MILLION)
      Lisandro Martinez - £48.3 million (POTENTIALLY £56.8 MILLION)
      Tyrell Malacia - £12.9 million (POTENTIALLY £14.6 MILLION)
      Christian Eriksen - FREE
      Martin Dupravka - LOAN

OUT: James Garner - £9 million (POTENTIALLY £15.5 MILLION)
          Andreas Pereira - £8 million (POTENTIALLY £10 MILLION)
          Tahith Chong - £1.45 million (POTENTIALLY £4.35 MILLION)
          Dylan Levitt - £300,000
          Paul Pogba - FREE
          Jesse Lingard - FREE
          Juan Mata - FREE
          Edinson Cavani - FREE
          Nemanja Matic - FREE
          Lee Grant - FREE
          D'Mani Mellor - FREE

JANUARY INS / OUTS (2022/23):

IN: N/A

OUT: N/A


FEEDER TEAMS:

United have link ups with AFC Ajax, FC Twente, FC Lyn Oslo, Royal Antwerp, Sporting Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Fluminense and Walsall.

INFORMATION NEEDED:

***** Information that I'm looking to find out is: PAST ASSISTANT MANAGERS, any other RESERVE TITLES won, any FRIENDLY TROPHIES won, ACADEMY HONOURS *****


HIGHS AND LOWS:

*** NOTE: I've been unable to track down our year by year record in the League Cup so that has been left blank in most years. ***

Thankfully I'm too young to remember the bad times back in the 1970s and '80s when Utd. were consistently falling short and Liverpool were dominating both domestically and in Europe... but having been brought up worshipping Manchester United from a very early age I will reflect on the good times and the bad times as all fans have had to endure both, I suppose the lows help you appreciate the highs more...

First of all it's worth nothing that although Alex Ferguson spent his first few years at the club trophyless he eventually got us on the road to success in 1990 with his FA Cup win after Lee Martin scored the winning goal in the replay vs. Crystal Palace. In 1991 he followed up that success with the European Cup Winners' Cup and then the UEFA Super Cup and in 1992 got us the Football League Cup (aka The Rumbelows Cup). It wasn't until 1993 though that we finally clinched the big one so from here on in, I will go over my memories:

1993/1994:

Notable Acquisitions: Roy Keane.

Notable Departures: None.

Honours: Premiership - FA Cup - FA Charity Shield.

After the success of our first top flight title in 26 years the challenge was to remain consistent and show that we weren't a one season wonder. We got off to a good start with our FA Community Shield (or FA Charity Shield as it was called back then) win over Arsenal where we drew 1-1 but won the penalty shoot-out 5-4. With Blackburn Rovers hot on our heels we were aided by the signing of future captain Roy Keane and it kept competition in midfield high with the thrust of Paul Ince, the wing wizardry of Ryan Giggs and the flair of Eric Cantona - to name but a few - we had enough creativity to hold on and not only win the league but also claim a domestic double by beating Chelsea 4-0 at Wembley to win the FA Cup. We did fall short though in the Carling Cup Final against Aston Villa as Andrei Kanchelskis was sent off and we lost 1-3. A dampener was put on things that year though with Matt Busby's death on 20th January 1994, I'm happy though that he was around the witness our Premiership win in 1993.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd ROUND
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: FINAL
FA Charity Shield: WINNERS

1994/1995:

Notable Acquisitions: Andy Cole - David May.

Notable Departures: Mike Phelan - Lee Martin.

Honours: FA Charity Shield.

Despite a good start by beating Blackburn Rovers 2-0 to clinch the FA Community Shield it went on to become a disappointing season which promised so much but delivered very little. We had another disappointing season in Europe thanks to the stupid ruling of not being able to field foreigners and despite being hot favourites to win the League we eventually fell short - despite the big money January addition of Andy Cole - thanks largely to Eric Cantona's banning after his infamous kung-fu fight with that yobbo Crystal Palace fan... Liverpool nearly did us a favour on the final day by beating Blackburn 2-1 but we failed to break down West Ham United's stubborn backline to draw 1-1 and kiss goodbye to the Premiership trophy for atleast a year. Disappointment in the Premiership was followed by a 1-0 FA Cup Final loss to Everton and at the end of the season Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis were infamously sold to make way for the class of '92 - David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Phil Neville.

UEFA Champions League: 1st ROUND
Premiership: 2nd
FA Cup: FINAL
League Cup: 3rd ROUND
FA Charity Shield: WINNERS

1995/1996:

Notable Acquisitions: None.

Notable Departures: Paul Ince - Mark Hughes - Andrei Kanchelskis.

Honours: Premiership - FA Cup.

Remembered mostly for Alan Hansen's famous comment of not being able to win major honours with kids after our first day thrashing by Aston Villa... how wrong he was. Showing a hunger that looked to be lost with the arrogant Paul Ince, the wantaway Andrei Kanchelski and the aging Mark Hughes, the Beckhams and the Scholes' etc brought a freshness to our first team and with the help of the old guard of Eric Cantona and Gary Pallister etc we were able to overturn a 12 point lead that Newcastle United held at the half way stage of that season which eventually led to domestic glory and Kevin Keegan famously snapping live on TV! Most satisfying though was our FA Cup Final win against Liverpool where Cantona scored that famous late goal in a 1-0 victory that meant we were the first team to win the (FA Cup and League) double twice... Liverpool will be most remembered for their choice of suits that day! Hahaha. How football can take you from the ultimate low to the ultimate high with a complete reversal of fortunes compared to what we got 12 months earlier... in my opinion that season was Eric Cantona's finest hour. Oh and Manchester City were relegated too.

Premiership: WINNERS
UEFA Cup: 2nd ROUND
FA Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: 2nd ROUND

1996/1997:

Notable Acquisitions: Ole Solskjaer - Ronny Johnsen - Karel Poborsky - Jordi Cruyff - Raimond van der Gouw.

Notable Departures: Steve Bruce - Lee Sharpe - Paul Parker.

Honours: Premiership - FA Charity Shield.

With our second domestic double in the bag I think most fans thoughts were now turning to arguably the biggest prize in football - The UEFA Champions League. Having gone a near 30 years without winning that trophy it was time to make a major claim for it and despite some damn fine performances - 4-0 vs. FC Porto - we surprisingly and annoyingly fell short against the rather unspectacular Borussia Dortmund in the Semi-Final losing 1-0 in each leg. Another disappointing thing was losing our proud 40 year unbeaten home record after losing 0-1 to a late Fenerbahce winner in the group stage - Alex Ferguson however went on record to say he was glad the record finally went as it was a weight off his shoulders. Disappointment in the Champions League though was helped by another Premiership success, shaking off competition from the rejuvenated Arsenal to claim our 4th Premiership trophy and 11th overall, we also beat Newcastle United 4-0 to win the FA Community Shield. We did have disappointment in the FA Cup though with our 4th Round 1-0 replay loss to Wimbledon after their late equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford. The end of the season however left a lot of us with tears in our eyes as Eric Cantona decided to retire due to a disagreement with the board over how they were taking advantage of his image, his performances that season suggested his heart was no longer in it and our worst fears came true that summer when he hung up his boots and waved goodbye.

UEFA Champions League: SEMI-FINAL
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: 4th ROUND
League Cup: 4th ROUND
FA Charity Shield: WINNERS

1997/1998:

Notable Acquisitions: Teddy Sheringham - Henning Berg.

Notable Departures: Eric Cantona (retired).

Honours: FA Charity Shield.

With the acquisition of the experienced Teddy Sheringham to replace Eric Cantona, SAF's European obsession continued as he went out to claim the club's second ever European trophy and despite lots of promise we once again fell flat in the Quarter-Final vs. AS Monaco losing on away goals after drawing 0-0 in France and 1-1 at Old Trafford... many may point to this to claim that Fergie took his eye off the ball to lose a big lead against a late Arsenal surge which eventually cost us the title after Marc Overmars' famous late winner at Old Trafford towards the end of the season, despite the bookies famously handing out money to punters who betted on Utd. winning again because they were so convinced we had done enough to clinch it. Personally I think lack of squad depth was what cost us along with the fact that Gary Pallister was no longer as sharp as he once was at the back, once Ryan Giggs got injured that lack of depth was horribly exposed. We also lost out on the FA Cup after underestimating Barnsley and sticking our reserves out as we drew the first game 1-1 and lost 3-2 away in the replay in the 5th Round. We did win the FA Community Shield though with a 4-2 penalty shoot-out win over Chelsea after drawing the game 1-1. Good news was that City were relegated to Division Two. That summer though SAF demanded big money for new signings and Martin Edwards finally handed it to him to buy the big Dutch defender - Jaap Stam for £10.6 million, Swedish winger - Jesper Blomqvist for £4.4 million and Dwight Yorke for £12.6 million (a then club record fee)... ahhhh happy memories and I still remember my excitement at landing them all.

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premiership: 2nd
FA Cup: 5th ROUND
League Cup: 3rd ROUND
FA Charity Shield: WINNERS

1998/1999:

Notable Acquisitions: Jaap Stam - Dwight Yorke - Jesper Blomqvist - Steve McClaren.

Notable Departures: Gary Pallister - Brian McClair - Brian Kidd.

Honours: UEFA Champions League - Premiership - FA Cup.

Despite a slow start (including a 3-0 humiliation against Arsenal in the FA Community Shield) and the disruption of the whole Rupert Murdoch saga, as well as the switch of Assistant Manager where eventual England manager Steve McClaren replaced Blackburn Rovers-bound Brian Kidd, our new players bedded in despite a poor start for Jaap Stam - who didn't quite adapt to the pace of the league straight away - for a mighty battle with Arsene Wenger's Arsenal side that went right to the death on the final day. Losing an early goal to Tottenham Hotspur we were up against it though our players showed their character as David Beckham and Andy Cole scored to clinch a 2-1 win over them and return the Premiership trophy to Old Trafford. Premiership success was followed by FA Cup success after a tough road to the final that included having to come from behind against Middlesbrough, claiming a narrow win over the up and coming (and very stubborn) Kevin Keegan led Fulham outfit, a thrilling last-gasp comeback over Liverpool in the 5th round winning 2-1 with last minute goals, the excellent replay win against an exciting and very attack-minded Chelsea side and then going from injustice after Roy Keane's disallowed goal against Arsenal, to winning our replay with them in the most dramatic of circumstances... having taken an early lead through a great strike from David Beckham we slowly let Arsenal take a hold of the game, Dennis Bergkamp then got a long-range deflected goal for them and then Roy Keane was soon sent off... facing non-stop pressure from them Phil Neville conceded a last minute penalty for big Peter Schmeichel to save from Bergkamp... we then held on for Ryan Giggs to score one of football's greatest ever individual goals to book our place in the Final. Newcastle United were our Final opponents and they never showed up if truth be told, Utd. claimed an easy 2-0 win with goals from Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes.
The holy grail that season was our exciting UEFA Champions League win after a 31 year wait... who can forget our thrashings of Brondby, our two thrilling 3-3 draws with FC Barcelona and our closely contended draws with FC Bayern Munich and that was all just in the group stage! A tough and tight Quarter-Final win over Inter Milan was followed by our Semi-Final against Juventus... despite having a goal disallowed we came from behind to draw 1-1 at Old Trafford leaving us with the unenviable task of trying overturn them in Turin - at the time they were considered as unbeatable there - to reach the Final in Barcelona... despite conceding 2 early goals we remarkably came back through goals by Roy Keane - in arguably his greatest ever performance for us - Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, a dampener though was Keane and Scholes' bans for the Final after picking up yellow cards. In the Final (which came after what would have been Matt Busby's 90th birthday on the eve of it) against FC Bayern Munich we sloppily conceded from a free-kick in the first 5 minutes and in truth never really performed, somehow though we scraped 2 goals in stoppage time through Teddy Sheringham and Dwight Yorke to do the impossible and win THE TREBLE, a feat only ever achieved before by Celtic (1967), AFC Ajax (1972), and PSV Eindhoven (1988). That was the biggest footballing high I've ever experienced. Will we ever match that achievement or even top it with a quadruple? Unlikely but time will tell...

UEFA Champions League: WINNERS
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
FA Charity Shield: RUNNERS UP

1999/2000:

Notable Acquisitions: Mark Bosnich - Mikael Silvestre - Quinton Fortune - Massimo Taibi.

Notable Departures: Peter Schmeichel.

Honours: Premiership - Intercontinental Cup.

After being so high the only way was down though we didn't go as low as most of the media were tipping us to go. With Peter Schmeichel signing off in spectacular fashion, SAF wrongly replaced him with the slack Mark Bosnich (in his second stint at the club) and despite some average to poor performances for us we were still able to clinch our 6th Premiership win in convincing fashion, and despite losing out on the UEFA Super Cup after a 1-0 loss against SS Lazio, Roy Keane scored the winning goal against Palmeiras as we clinched our first ever Intercontinental Cup though we lost out on the FA Community Shield to Arsenal again as they came from behind to beat us 2-1. This season was most remembered for us controversially withdrawing ourselves from the FA Cup to buckle under pressure from Sepp Blatter and appear in the FIFA World Club Championship after the FA refused to give us a bye to the later rounds. After being eliminated in the 1st Round Group Stage, the only thing the players came back with though were nice suntans! Who remembers Massimo Taibi?

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premiership: WINNERS
FIFA World Club Championship: 1st ROUND
Intercontinental Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: 3rd ROUND
FA Charity Shield: RUNNERS UP

2000/2001:

Notable Acquisitions: Fabien Barthez.

Notable Departures: Henning Berg - Massimo Taibi.

Honours: Premiership.

This season started off with a disappointing 0-2 FA Community Shield loss to Chelsea. Like with the previous year we had more European disappointment with FC Bayern Munich exacting their revenge on us in the Quarter-Final after narrowly winning both legs. We also had a limp return to the FA Cup with our early 4th Round exit to West Ham United after Fabien Barthez made a clown out of himself. We did get another landslide Premiership win though. However our domestic success was soured with Liverpool winning the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and Carling Cup, that certainly left a bitter taste in my mouth, though City were relegated from the Premier League again.

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: 4th ROUND
League Cup: 4th ROUND
FA Charity Shield: RUNNERS UP

2001/2002:

Notable Acquisitions: Ruud van Nistelrooy - Juan Sebastián Verón - Diego Forlan - Laurent Blanc.

Notable Departures: Jaap Stam - Andy Cole - Teddy Sheringham - Jesper Blomqvist - Mark Bosnich - Steve McClaren.

Honours: N/A.

This was supposed to be SAF's final year at the helm before going upstairs and he wanted to go out in spectacular fashion too. We got off to a bad start with a 1-2 loss to Liverpool in the Community Shield with our first match at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium under an enclosed roof. After Jaap Stam's revelations about being tapped up, SAF harshly decided to cash in on one of our greatest assets, he then replaced him with the ageing and passed it Laurent Blanc - big mistake! Despite the exciting and expensive acquisitions of Ruud van Nistelrooy for £19 million and Juan Sebastián Verón for £28.1 million we scored for fun but also conceded for fun which eventually - and humiliatingly - gave the Premiership title back to Arsenal after they clinched it at Old Trafford with a 0-1 win, this season is probably most remembered for our exciting but disappointing last minute 4-3 loss to Newcastle United and our 5-3 win over Tottenham Hotspur after being 3-0 down at half time. We also had a poor exit from the FA Cup losing 2-0 away to Middlsbrough in the 4th Round. More European heartache came with a poor Semi-Final away goals loss to Bayer 04 Leverkusen in one season where we had no excuse not to reach the Final, we had key injuries at the time but still should have possessed enough quality to win. Overall this was a very poor and depressing season that is best left forgotten.
At the end of the year Fergie decided he would stay on for longer after a last minute charge of heart after we reportedly had a deal in place to bring in then England manager - Sven Goran Eriksson - although in the 2009/2010 season Louis van Gaal admitted he was the man set to take the job.

UEFA Champions League: SEMI-FINAL
Premiership: 3rd
FA Cup: 4th ROUND
League Cup: 3rd ROUND
FA Charity Shield: RUNNERS UP

2002/2003:

Notable Acquisitions: Rio Ferdinand - Ricardo - Carlos Quieroz.

Notable Departures: Dwight Yorke - Ronny Johnsen - Denis Irwin.

Honours: Premiership.

Phhhh, what a season this was, with our exciting League Cup campaign where we eventually lost 2-0 in the Final to Liverpool... our exciting UEFA Champion League campaign where we played great football, famously beating Juventus twice - with style! But eventually succumbed to Real Madrid in the Quarter-Final after a poor 1st leg performance at the Santiago Bernabéu. Our famous but depressing FA Cup 5th Round loss to Arsenal where Ryan Giggs missed an open goal and our magnificent late comeback to win the EPL for an 8th time and avenge Arsenal's late comeback back in 1998 thanks largely to 25 of Ruud van Nistelrooy's amazing end of season goal tally of 44. This season had it all, though I felt saddened at the end of the season as I felt we deserved more... this was the start of the Alex Ferguson/Carlos Quieroz (sometimes 4-4-2, sometimes 4-5-1, sometimes 4-3-3) era though it was delayed a bit as Quieroz was hired as Real Madrid's Manager at the end of the season. Another one who sadly left was David Beckham who also joined Real Madrid for a record £23.5 million, it also marked the arrival of multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich who bought Chelsea in the summer of that year and promised unlimited funds to break up Manchester United's and Arsenal's domination and not only make Chelsea the top dogs in England but in Europe too. It was a sad time for me and topped off a difficult but certainly mixed year for me both in football and away from the sport. The summer of that year though did bring in the then teenager who would soon light up Old Trafford with his fast and exciting brand of football - Cristiano Ronaldo.

Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: 5th ROUND
League Cup: FINAL

2003/2004:

Notable Acquisitions: Cristiano Ronaldo - Louis Saha - Tim Howard - Kléberson - Eric Djemba-Djemba - David Bellion - Walter Smith

Notable Departures: David Beckham - Juan Sebastián Verón - Fabien Barthez - Laurent Blanc (retired) - Carlos Queiroz.

Honours: FA Cup - FA Community Shield.

With a summer of ins and outs behind us and Fergie's decision to go it alone without an Assistant Manager and then Chief Executive Peter Kenyon about to sell out to Chelsea we got off to a great start with a penalty shoot-out FA Community Shield victory over Arsenal, however the side was a little bit inbalanced with the departures of David Beckham and Juan Sebastian Veron - both key players for us in 2002/2003 - the unspectacular performances of flops Eric Djemba-Djemba, David Bellion and Kléberson and inconsistent performances of new goalkeeper Tim Howard and winger Cristiano Ronaldo. We were clawing out narrow wins though and were on top of the table by a short margin, however in January - despite the £12.825 million acquisition of exciting but injury-prone Frenchman - Louis Saha . Rio Ferdinand had to start his 9 month ban for missing a drugs test and a woefully unfit Wes Brown came in to replace him after the gaffer decided not to buy a new defender in the transfer window. Results dropped and the title slipped away into Arsenal's grasp, one can only wonder how things would have been different had Ruud van Nistelrooy converted that last minute penalty against them earlier in the season but that's football for you and credit to Arsenal as they went the whole season unbeaten and deserved their win. There was more disappointment in Europe as a Jose Mourinho led FC Porto capitalised on Tim Howard's shocking last minute error to beat us in the 2nd Round of that tournament and we also had League Cup disappointment with a convincing 2-0 loss away to West Bromwich Albion in the 4th Round as Fergie decided to give the kids a chance again. However the season ended on a high as Leeds United were relegated and we won the FA Cup for an 11th time after narrowly beating Arsenal in the Semi-Final and then beating Millwall 3-0 in the final thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo and Ruud van Nistelrooy's goals... a nice end to a disappointing season and a trophy I certainly made the most of with Chelsea about to become a monster.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd ROUND
Premiership: 3rd
FA Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: 4th ROUND
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2004/2005:

Notable Acquisitions: Wayne Rooney - Gabriel Heinze - Alan Smith - Giuseppe Rossi - Gerard Piqué - Liam Miller - Carlos Queiroz.

Notable Departures: Nicky Butt - Diego Forlan - Eric Djemba-Djemba - Ricardo - Walter Smith.

Honours: N/A.

With the surprise addition of Leeds United's favourite son - Alan Smith for £7 million and England and Everton's favourite son - Wayne Rooney for up to £29.85 million a grit was added to the side which was arguably missing in the previous season... it also marked the return of Carlos Quieroz after his failed spell at Real Madrid. However experimental line-ups and tactics - after Alec Ferguson memorably claimed that a Jose Mourinho led Chelsea side's name was already on the Premiership trophy after their first day win against us - just led most of us into napping during games as we finished the season with our lowest ever goals and points tally with the only real memorable moment being our famous win over Arsenal to end their unbeaten run, though annoyingly Utd. had to give Chelsea a lap of honour and then get beaten convincingly too, not a happy memory. Despite a high in Europe through Wayne Rooney's debut hat-trick vs. Fenerbahce at Old Trafford, disappointment was to follow after being elimated by AC Milan in the 2nd Round without even a whimper and then our highly unfortunate but predictable penalty shoot-out loss to Arsenal in the FA Cup Final after dominating the whole game. That season marked Malcolm Glazer's eventual victory over the fans as he seized control of the club and saddled us with around £500 million worth of debt after we had been the world's richest club as a PLC prior to that. A horrible season was topped off as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down to win on penalty kicks against AC Milan in the Champions League Final that year. The worst season I have ever experienced.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd ROUND
Premiership: 3rd
FA Cup: FINAL
League Cup: SEMI-FINAL
FA Community Shield: RUNNERS UP

2005/2006:

Notable Acquisitions: Nemanja Vidic - Edwin van der Sar - Patrice Evra - Ji-sung Park - Ben Foster.

Notable Departures: Roy Keane - Phil Neville - Kléberson - Roy Carroll - Liam Miller.

Honours: League Cup.

The only positive I can think of from a season like the previous one is this season was always likely to be an improvement and thankfully it was. This wasn't a classic season, it wasn't a return to the glory days but it was a big improvement from the last one and come the end of it it left us with hope for the future. It saw Fergie start to move away from the negative tactics he became familiar with the season before though they still had a habit of creeping back and it played a big part in giving us our worst European campaign in a long time where we scored only 3 goals and were eliminated in the 1st Round. The signing of Edwin van der Sar gave us our first world class goalkeeper since Peter Schmeichel left and that helped keep our backline more solid, the signing of Ji-sung Park also gave us more options in attack and all of that helped give us a different dimension from the previous season, it also helped that both Cristiano Ronaldo and especially Wayne Rooney were beginning to show signs of improvement and that this season Louis Saha returned from injury to have his finest moment at the club as he played a huge part in winning a trophy and getting us the runners up spot. This season proved to be Roy Keane's farewell to the club - he should have left the summer before in my opinion - as he left after a mutual agreement with the board and Fergie after he publically criticised the players after our 4-1 hammering against Middlesbrough, Gary Neville eventually replaced him as captain. It was in January where Fergie brought in both Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic for £5.5 million and £7.2 million respectively though they both took time to adapt. We wanted a trophy that season and any would do, it wasn't to be the FA Cup as annoyingly Liverpool knocked us out in the 5th Round and eventually went on to win it, but we won the League Cup for the first time in 14 years to help calm down both players, staff and fans, and although Chelsea once again ran away with the title we still finished with an impressive 83 points and got second position in the table - after fierce competition from Liverpool - which for me was important with all the debt that the Glazer family got us into, it's just a shame that Chelsea ended up winning it in the match against us in a humiliating 3-0 defeat after our late surge pushed it close to end of the season... come the summer it would mark the end of an era as Ruud van Nistelrooy departed for Real Madrid.
It's been 3 years since the Premiership trophy was at Old Trafford but atleast we can say that we earned it, we earned every penny we had at the club as a PLC and we've earned every replica trophy that sits in our museum that is glittered with history, something that Chelsea can't boast... I take great pride in that, it speaks volumes that a club like Chelsea has to rely on a multi-billionaire to overtake us so everyone associated with Utd. can hold their heads up high.

UEFA Champions League: 1st ROUND
Premiership: 2nd
FA Cup: 5th ROUND
League Cup: WINNERS

2006/2007:

Notable Acquisitions: Michael Carrick - Henrik Larsson (loan) - Tomasz Kuszczak (loan).

Notable Departures: Ruud van Nistelrooy - Quinton Fortune - David Bellion - John Obi Mikel.

Honours: Premiership.

With Michael Carrick's big money move completed the mission was to wrestle the Premiership trophy back up North after 3 years without winning it. However there was uncertainty over the relationship between Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo after their World Cup spat and many felt that our squad was too small to accomplish such a feat after SAF was once again quiet in the transfer market. After some thrilling performances where we beat Fulham 5-1, Bolton Wanderers 4-0 and 4-1 and Blackburn Rovers 4-1 there was optimism that we could pull it off though a late spell of injuries nearly wrecked it all for us, thankfully - on the back of an incredible 4-2 win against Everton despite being 2-0 down after 49 minutes - we were able to hold on after Arsenal ironically handed the title to us after their 1-1 draw with Chelsea two games from the end. Memorable last minute strikes against Fulham and Liverpool just went on to highlight what an amazing rollercoaster ride of a season it was for us and with 89 points we thoroughly deserved to be champions for a 16th time despite a very stubborn challenge by Chelsea. This will go down as one of SAF's greatest ever achievements and it was the last Premiership campaign before the name change. In Europe we played arguably the best football of the tournament and for long periods we were favourites to win after escaping with only a narrow loss and an away goal in Rome with 10 men and then destroying them 7-1 at Old Trafford in the return game. Sadly though our tiredness, injuries and our poor away form was enough to knock us out against AC Milan despite a spirited comeback to win 3-2 at Old Trafford. In the FA Cup we had a tricky road to the Final but made it as we were the first side to appear in the newly reconstructed Wembley Stadium, though more strange tactics from SAF and Carlos Quieroz and one of football's strangest ever decisions - denying a clear penalty and a goal where the ball was clearly over the line - cost us the trophy against a revenge seeking Chelsea side. Things were to look up for us though as first of all Leeds United were relegated to League One and then Liverpool were beaten 2-1 by AC Milan in the Champions League Final and images of their "we've won it 6 times" victory parade bus were taken by fans of both Utd. and Everton in Athens. All was well that ended well.

UEFA Champions League: SEMI-FINAL
Premiership: WINNERS
FA Cup: FINAL
League Cup: 4th ROUND

2007/2008:

Notable Acquisitions: Carlos Tévez (loan) - Owen Hargreaves - Anderson -Nani - Tomasz Kuszczak - Rafael Da Silva - Fabio Da Silva - Rodrigo Possebon - Manucho.

Notable Departures: Ole Solskjaer (retired) - Gabriel Heinze - Alan Smith - Giuseppe Rossi - Tim Howard - Kieran Richardson.

Honours: UEFA Champions League - Premier League - FA Community Shield.

The club had a summer of big spending, we splashed the cash on exciting young talents Nani and Anderson and then finally got our hands on Owen Hargreaves as well as making Tomasz Kuszczak's loan a permanent move. Most exciting of all was our signing of Carlos Tévez after a long and stressful saga regarding his ownership, eventually an out of court settlement ended that matter and we were able to sign him on an initial 2 year loan deal with a view to making it permanent, and also our signing of 9 year old wonderkid Rhain Davis from Australia making a lot of headlines.
We got off to a good start with our FA Community Shield win over Chelsea after drawing 1-1 but winning 3-0 in a penalty shoot-out with Edwin van der Sar amazingly saving all 3 of their penalties. Ole Solskjaer soon announced his retirement - though he's staying on as an ambassador for the club - and that left us desperately short of strikers.
We got off to our worst ever start to a Premier League season taking only 2 points out of a possible 9 and even after then grinding out four successful 1-0 wins while doing likewise in the Champions League beating both Sporting Lisbon and AS Roma 1-0. Very unlike the Utd we all know and love, but after regaining full form and fitness we took off and got into the knock out stage in convincing fashion going unbeaten after drawing our final game 1-1 away to Roma.
We got eliminated in the 3rd Round of the Carling Cup but despite a few hiccups such as our away losses to Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United we played well in the league to make up for our slow start. We had a good run in the FA Cup beating Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur fairly comfortably in the end despite a scare or two. We then faced off against Arsenal in the 5th Round and beat them 4-0 (a result which seemingly kicked off a run of poor results for them, something that destroyed what was an otherwise promising season for them) but lost in the Quarter Final to Portsmouth. The QF loss was one of the most shocking losses I have ever witnessed, we dominated from beginning to end, had some bad decisions go against us (the tale of two bad penalty decisions both going against us) and missed chance after chance.
In the Champions League we edged two hard fought games against Lyon drawing away and getting a narrow 1-0 win at Old Trafford. We strolled past Roma in the Quarter-Final (3-0 on aggregate) despite almost falling behind at Old Trafford to a Daniele De Rossi penalty. And we beat Barcelona in the Semi-Final though certainly made hard work of it after Ronaldo missed an early penalty at the Nou Camp. We eventually edged past them after seeing Paul Scholes roll back the years with a 35 yard belter... that 1-0 aggregate win set up an epic Final encounter against a Roman Abramovich funded Chelsea.
In the league we got past Arsenal and finished off their title hopes with an exciting 2-1 win at Old Trafford but Chelsea just would not go away. Despite going into the final run of games with a healthy 5 point lead we showed a few nerves by slipping to draws against Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers. It was all set up for a potential decider away to Chelsea and if we won we'd be crowned as champions, if we drew it would require another win from our last 2 games but if we lost then they would be level on points and we'd be forced to win both of our last games depending on their results. Sadly with the European Cup in mind Fergie took a huge gamble and rested 6 first choice players, we unsurprisingly lost 2-1 though we nearly hung on. We won our last 2 games though and magically it was Ryan Giggs who scored the clinching goal on his 758th appearance for the club. This was our first triumph under the new name of the Premier League.
In the Champions League Final Chelsea were out for revenge and some silverware to save face and effectively save Avram Grant's job. It was the clash of the titans and Utd started in dominant fashion, controlling possession, looking very composed and taking an early and deserved lead through Ronaldo. Despite a Michael Ballack chance we continued to dominate and were guilty of wasting good chances from Tevez (x2) and Carrick. The Chelsea equaliser was a mixture of rotten timing, horrible bad luck and a lack of concentration and for the whole of the 2nd half they dominated and looked more likely to win it. Extra time levelled itself out and eventually showed Utd as the stronger side with Giggs missing a sitter to win it late on and then eventually Didier Drogba was sent off for losing his head. The penalty shoot out was horrible to sit through and after Ronaldo missed I thought we'd lose but as if by fate John Terry missed his penalty, Giggs slotted in and van der Sar saved Nicolas Anelka's weak effort and on Giggs' 759th appearance, 100 years after our first league title, 40 years after our first European Cup (and the honour of being the first British team to win it) and 50 years on from Munich in the pouring rain of Moscow Utd won their 3rd European Cup and their 50th major honour since 1878. A magical end to a magical season from a side that can surely only go from strength to strength provided we can keep the core of it together and steadily add more quality each year. Very happy times indeed for a Manchester United fan.

***** This season marked the 50th anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster on February 6th and that week we played at home against Man City in special kits but lost 1-2 after a poor performance. *****

UEFA Champions League: WINNERS
Premier League: WINNERS
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: 3rd ROUND
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2008/2009:

Notable Acquisitions: Dimitar Berbatov - Zoran Tosic - Davide Petrucci.

Notable Departures: Carlos Queiroz - Louis Saha - Mikael Silvestre - Gerard Piqué.

Honours: Premier League - FIFA Club World Cup - League Cup - FA Community Shield.

Unfortunately we didn't have much time to reflect on our double triumpth of last season with speculation running throughout the summer of Real Madrid's obsession with signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Utd issued a firm hands off warning but speculation continued, most of which has eminated from Spanish newspapers Marca and AS. I think it's best to just ignore it and treat it like it doesn't exist because this boring saga has thus far showed no signs of going away.
Alex Ferguson much like after winning the European cup in '99 has given himself a maximum of 3 years before retiring and despite losing out to Arsenal for the signature of Aaron Ramsey it's been a very quiet summer with only Gerard Piqué departing after being frustrated due to a lack of first team action. Carlos Queiroz also departed to become the manager of the Portugal national team. And both Louis Saha and Mikael Silvestre departed as well, the latter moving to Arsenal.
Cristiano Ronaldo later decided to stay with us, we also got to play the Da Silva twins after their 18th birthdays and we finally got Dimitar Berbatov after a long stressful saga with plenty of twists and turns for an almost club record fee of £30.75 million as well as Fraizer Campbell joining Tottenham on a season long loan and them dropping their complaint over tapping up to the Premier League. On a less positive note, Man City's takeover by a tycoon whose riches dwarf those of Roman Abramovich is very worrying indeed and threatens to be VERY bad for the game. Manucho was granted a work permit and Mike Phelan followed in the footsteps of Archie Knox, Brian Kidd, Steve McClaren, Walter Smith and Carlos Queiroz (x2) to become Fergie's new Assistant Manager. Jaap Stam also later rejoined as a scout!
The season began with a hard fought FA Community Shield penalty shootout win over Portsmouth after drawing the game 0-0 despite dominating, having some good chances and then a clear penalty turned down. We won the penalty shoot out 3-1 with Carlos Tévez, Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick all converting and Portsmouth skying two as well as van der Sar saving one with his legs. We soon after lost out to another UEFA Super Cup against Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg after an appallingly bad performance where our players (minus Carlos Tévez) didn't show up until they scored their second goal and they realised it was do or die time. Sadly it was too little too late and a trophy thrown down the drain as far as I'm concerned, especially as we were FAR superior in the last half an hour. I think Paul Scholes' silly sending off summed everything up. In the league we once again got off to a sluggish start after getting a frustrated 1-1 home draw with Newcastle Utd. and then losing to Liverpool in a rare victory for Rafa Benitez over us. Slowly we did start to get our season on track and got ourselves into a steady position as Liverpool and Chelsea continued to grind out results. Frustrating draws against Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur left us leaving to take part in the FIFA Club World Cup a few points behind our rivals. In the FIFA competition we won a thrilling contest with Gamba Osaka in which we eventually won 5-3 and in the Final after being frustrated for most of it and then having Nemanja Vidic sent off our hard work came off with a fairly late Wayne Rooney winner. It meant we were the first English team to win this competition since its format/name change in 2005 taking over from the old Intercontinental Cup. Back in the league we found a turning point with our hard fought 0-1 win over Stoke City on Boxing Day and that led to a huge run of wins which culminated in Edwin van der Sar breaking the record for consecutive clean sheets (14 games in total). However, problems were to follow with first Roque Santa Cruz scoring against Tomasz Kuszczak for Blackburn (in a game we just edged) and then Peter Lovenkrands for Newcastle Utd. ending van der Sar's personal record in the following game (another we just edged too). The problems really kicked in though when after some awful individual errors we lost 1-4 at home to Liverpool (our heaviest defeat at home in well over a decade) and then our 0-2 away loss to Fulham. Following on from that - and with Liverpool rejuvenated and on standby to overtake us if we had any more slip ups - we played against Aston Villa and after a lifeless performance were losing 1-2 only for Ronaldo to score a couple of crackers and a then 17 year old unknown called Federico Macheda to come on and score a wonder goal in injury time to win it for us. Macheda did the same the following week against Sunderland and then Utd. cruised towards the title by clinching it with a 0-0 draw against Arsenal at Old Trafford to equal Liverpool's record of 18 league titles. In the League Cup we used our strong second string and despite the truly embarrassing Semi-Final 1-0 defeat to Derby we beat them comfortably to reach the Final against Tottenham Hotspur after beating Middlesbrough, QPR and Blackburn Rovers in the earlier rounds.  Despite yet another poor Wembley outing by us (as much to do with the dry surface than anything) we eventually won the game on penalties after some Ben Foster heroics, Anderson slotted away the winning penalty. The FA Cup was the opposite story as we eventually lost the Semi-Final (SAF's first ever) to Everton after losing to penalties following Dimitar Berbatov's incredible miss and Rio Ferdinand's poor placement. Before then we got past Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, Derby County and Fulham. Finally in the UEFA Champions League we were actually quite poor in the group stage only winning 2 games and scoring very few goals in what was a reasonably easy group (Villarreal CF, Celtic and Aalborg BK) but we finished first and in the knock out rounds with Ronaldo beginning to return to form we blew away the opposition and provided some of our best football that season. It started with the convincing 2-0 aggregate win over Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan side, then despite a tired home performance we narrowly beat FC Porto in the return leg and that set up a Semi-Final encounter with Arsenal. In the first leg we dominated but only won 1-0 (and as a result overtook Juventus' record number of 20 European home games unbeaten) but our 1-3 win at The Emirates Stadium was something truly incredible and a game I'm not likely to forget in a long while! Unfortunately it all went horribly wrong in the Final against FC Barcelona. The eve of that game marked Sir Matt Busby's 100th birthday, we could have been the first team to retain the UCL (since its name/format change in 1992) and once again we were unbeaten in the competition. There were many omens which suggested we were once again going to make history but for various reasons it just didn't happen for us on the night. Many people have tried to pinpoint where it all went wrong in that 0-2 defeat but my personal feeling is that it was a mixture of many things. We won a lot of trophies this year but performance-wise we weren't at our most enthralling and with Ronaldo's pining for a move to Real Madrid and Carlos Tévez becoming dismayed with life at Old Trafford - after the club stalled on paying his £25.5 million asking price and also him having Dimitar Berbatov to share his place with - then team spirit and individual performances were suffering. Eventually Ronaldo and Tévez went and while in an ideal world we'd have kept both, realistically it just wasn't going to happen. Both carried too much baggage and while we may suffer in the short term I'm convinced that in the long term it'll benefit us no end. I'm also convinced that a change of tactics was required and that Ronaldo's unorthodox style of play was suppressing the game of others (most notably Wayne Rooney) so I think there are many positives to be had with this and hopefully we'll be alright though time will tell on this... Overall though a truly fantastic season and one that'll be looked back as with a lot of fondness as we once again set the benchmark for other teams to follow and that was without ever really being at our best. We ARE the best club in the world and no one is better despite how well they can play on one given night and how much cash they get from nowhere to splash out on the latest fashion accessory.

UEFA Champions League: FINAL
Premier League: WINNERS
FIFA Club World Cup: WINNERS
FA Cup: SEMI-FINAL
League Cup: WINNERS
UEFA Super Cup: RUNNERS UP
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2009/2010:

Notable Acquisitions: Michael Owen - Luis Antonio Valencia - Gabriel Obertan - Mame Biram Diouf.

Notable Departures: Cristiano Ronaldo - Carlos Tévez - Danny Simpson - Fraizer Campbell - Manucho.

Honours: League Cup.

With the summer being a time of change with a new record breaking £20 million per year sponsorship deal being announced with AON to start from the 2010/2011 season (replacing AIG), and most significantly Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tévez going with Antonio Valencia and the shock signing of ex-Liverpool favourite Michael Owen coming in - following in the footsteps of Best, Coppell, Strachan, Robson, Cantona, Beckham and Ronaldo to become our new number 7 - it was a new beginning for Manchester United.
We started with the traditional curtain raiser The FA Community Shield, and despite getting off to a bright start we missed too many chances and surrendered a 1-0 lead to go 1-2 down in controversial circumstances. Despite a last minute goal to draw 2-2 we lost 1-4 in a penalty shootout (our first ever in this competition) after a couple of really weak efforts from Giggs and Evra. A notable achievement this season was equalling AFC Ajax's 14 game unbeaten away run in the UEFA Champions League with our last away defeat going back to the 2006/07 season against AC Milan at the San Siro in the Semi-Final. However our 23 game unbeaten home run was ended with a 0-1 loss to Besiktas after fielding the second string - dejavu you could say after suffering a similar fate to Fenerbahce all those years ago with a deflected long ranger. It was a bad performance in which Fergie got to learn a few things about the fringe players and it didn't come at too great a price as we had already qualified for the 2nd Round with relative ease, although it did put finishing 1st in jeapardy. We secured 1st place in the end with a 3-1 away win at Wolfsburg; Owen scored a hattrick and despite the worst defensive injury crisis I've ever witnessed we held firm. It also spelled the end of our 8 year unbeaten home group run in the Champions League. In the FA Cup we were given a 3rd Round tie against bitter enemies Leeds United and despite expecting us to give them a timely reminder of our dominance it didn't quite go to plan with an embarrassingly poor performance that led to a 0-1 defeat, it was a huge low that was extremely hard to stomach, especially as they were two leagues below us. It was our first 3rd Round exit since we lost to Bournemouth in 1984. Shortly after the FA Cup shock we were given even worse news in that the debt put on us by the Glazer family was worse than initially feared with only the £80 million sale of Cristiano Ronaldo enough to ensure we didn't make a near £32 million loss. The family then went in search of £504 million worth of bonds to ease the debt burden and target the PIK (payment in kind) notes worth around £178 million that has an interest rate at 14.75%, the bonds were secured against Old Trafford and the sale of our state of the art training ground put under serious condition. With the news of that coming out IMUSA and MUST headed a revolt that is going to ensure that times will be interesting around the club from now on and that begins with the green and gold revolution. In the League Cup we got past Wolves with a Danny Welbeck goal, beat Barnsley 2-0 with Welbeck and Michael Owen doing the honours (and Ben Foster comically getting tackled and scored against by some pitch invading kids), a 2-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur (both of which scored by Darron Gibson) and then the epic encounter against Man City which not only was a rollercoaster of a tie onfield but also off it as well with the rivalry and the green and gold fully taking off, we also denied them their first trophy in 34 years. In the Final we rode our luck with Vidic lucky not to be dismissed but we won it fairly comfortably in the end despite the early scare; Owen and Wayne scoring to ensure we retained a cup trophy for the first time in our history. In the knock out stages of The Champions League we first faced off against AC Milan in a truly great round that will be remembered for many years to come. We finally broke our San Siro curse to come from behind and win 3-2 thanks to a truly great team performance and individual performance by Wayne Rooney. In the second leg we hammered them 4-0 to win 7-2 on aggregate; as if that wasn't great enough David Beckham made an emotional farewell and donned the green and gold scarf in what was a truly special occasion. In the Quarter-Final we faced Bayern Munich and despite a dream start at The Allianz Arena with an early Rooney goal we fell apart and were lucky to escape with a 2-1 defeat despite both of their goals being late on; a bad night was rounded off by Rooney picking up a serious ankle injury that would prove to be enormous in our touch and go efforts to retain the domestic trophy and once again rule Europe. In the second leg despite the amazing inclusion of Rooney (who went off injured after 55 minutes) and a breathtaking first half performance showcasing Nani's best ever performance for the club in his first 3 years we conceded at a bad time and then with the harsh sending off of Rafael we just didn't have enough to get through with Bayern sneaking through via away goals. We were desperately unlucky but it would be wrong not to acknowledge an overall lack of quality and silly individual errors. In the Premier League we struggled for consistency all season and eventually lost by 1 point to Chelsea (who were also the first team in Premier League history to score over 100 goals) after we finished on 85 points. We scored a fair few goals along the way and also had the worst injury crisis I have ever witnessed from November to January but on the whole the failure to adequately replace Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tévez was the difference that dragged us down to Chelsea's level even if we can blame poor refereeing decisions that cost us both games against them, some iffy decisions in a lot of our other games and a lot of luck and assistance in a lot of Chelsea's fixtures (i.e. Bolton Wanderers and Steven Gerrard's back pass in a game where Liverpool could have created history and decided the league title). We did finish higher than many tipped us to and along the way produced some excellent and exciting performances like against Man City home and away, Wigan Athletic home and away, Stoke City away, Tottenham Hotspur away and home, Everton home and Fulham home. Unfortunately for the times we played well we would also slip up to the likes of Burnley, Liverpool, Sunderland, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Fulham and Everton. Overall it will be remembered as a very mediocre but intriguing season; if things are to improve we need to make a few tweaks or else we could slip away even further because as it stands we're far too reliant on Wayne Rooney.

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premier League: 2nd
FA Cup: 3rd ROUND
League Cup: WINNERS
FA Community Shield: RUNNERS UP

2010/2011:

Notable Acquisitions: Javier Hernández - Chris Smalling - Bébé - Anders Lindegaard.

Notable Departures: Gary Neville (retired) - Ben Foster - Zoran Tosic.

Honours: Premier League - FA Community Shield.

After a quiet summer with The Red Knights deciding against a bid for the club (for now at least) and on the transfer front both Javier Hernández and Chris Smalling bought months ahead of it the only player brought in during that time was an unknown Portuguese starlet called Bébé with the notable departures of Ben Foster, Zoran Tosic and Rodrigo Possebon. After a good pre-season we begun against Chelsea in the FA Community Shield and barring some questionable defending we won quite convincingly with a 3-1 win and an early impressive winning goal by Hernández. We started the season in impressive fashion with a solid 3-0 win over Newcastle United which in truth should have been more. Away to Fulham we were especially disappointing but should have come away with all 3 points, however, thanks to a Nani penalty miss and letting the lead slip twice we dropped 2 points. We got a routine 3-0 win over West Ham United at home but it was deja vu against Everton as we let a 3-1 lead slip with 2 goals poorly conceded in injury time and it was almost the same against Liverpool as we let a 2-0 lead slip thanks to sloppy defending again and a quickfire Steven Gerrard brace, but thanks to Dimitar Berbatov scoring a stunning hattrick (the first since Jack Rowley in 1946!) we won 3-2. After Liverpool our disappointing run of draws continued with two barely deserved draws against Bolton Wanderers and Sunderland then a 2-0 lead surrendered against West Bromwich Albion at home. Things were to get worse though with a bombshell from Wayne Rooney announcing he wanted to leave the club due to "a lack of ambition", while that was in part true due to crippling debts, it also stunk of him wanting to leave for a bigger pay cheque and Alex Ferguson's handling of it did nothing but remind people what a great man he is. Shortly afterwards in a sensational U-turn he signed a new contract after apparently being given assurances by all concerned regarding transfers, it left a bitter taste in the mouth and while it aided the protests it also gave the club good PR and alienated a lot of fans from him. Afterwards we scraped a late winner against Stoke City to secure a 2-1 victory and seemingly turn a corner with wins against Tottenham Hotspur and an injury and illness side hitting a last minute winner against Wolverhampton Wanderers meaning we made a record breaking unbeaten start to the season. Afterwards we got a tense 0-0 away to Manchester City, a brilliant comeback to draw 2-2 away to Aston Villa after a really poor performance against their weakened line-up, an unconvincing 2-0 win against Wigan Athletic and then an outstanding performance against Blackburn Rovers where we won 7-1 with Berbatov ending a 10 game goal drought with 5 goals on the day; only the fourth player in Premier League history to do so along with our own Andy Cole (1995), Alan Shearer (1999) and Jermain Defoe (2009). It was announced we had a deal to sign Anders Lindegaard from Aalesunds FK for a fee believed to be around £3.5 million. Afterwards we got a narrow but deserved 1-0 win against Arsenal, a 2-0 win against Sunderland, a 1-1 away draw to Birmingham City thanks to a dodgy goal allowed at the end, a barely deserved 2-1 away win to West Bromwich Albion, a narrow 2-1 win against Stoke City, a 0-0 draw away to Spurs and a 5-0 home win against Birmingham, with Dimitar Berbatov being one of only 3 players (Alan Shearer and Ruud van Nistelrooy) to score 3 hattricks in one season. Against Blackpool away we got off to a poor start going in at half time 2-0 down but produced a stunning comeback in the second half winning 3-2, we then got a comfortable 3-1 home win against Aston Villa but our 24 game unbeaten start to the season ended with a shocking away loss away to Wolves where we failed to get going. We recovered from that defeat by beating Man City 2-1 at home with a stunning bicycle kick winner from Rooney, after the match ex-City player Mike Summerbee went on a hilarious rant about us. Afterwards we won 4-0 away to Wigan in a rare impressive away performance but against Chelsea lost 2-1 after once again being on the receiving end of some awful decisions. Afterwards we suffered a crushing 3-1 defeat away to Liverpool with a Dirk Kuyt hattrick, get a dramatic late Berbatov winner against Bolton, came from 2 down to beat West Ham United 4-2 away, beat Fulham comfortably, got a disappointing 0-0 away to Newcastle United, beat Everton, lost convincingly away to Arsenal and then beat Chelsea 2-1 at Old Trafford in a dramatic and exciting game. We sealed our record 19th league win with an away draw against Blackburn Rovers and ended the season in style by beating Blackpool 4-2. In The League Cup we beat Scunthorpe United 5-2 away from home in the 3rd round, get a hard earned 3-2 home win against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 4th round thanks to a dramatic last minute Javier Hernández, but sadly in the Quarter-Final suffered a humiliating 4-0 loss away to West Ham United ending a 30 game unbeaten run which was our best in 11 years. In The Champions League we topped our group with a win and draw against Valencia and Glasgow Rangers and two wins against Bursaspor, but failed to get a record breaking 6 straight group game clean sheets after conceding a goal in the final game. In the 2nd Round we narrowly defeated Marseille 2-1 on aggregate thanks to 2 goals from Hernández. In the Quarter-Final we turned on the style to beat Chelsea in convincing fashion brushing them aside 3-1 on aggregate with wins home and away and we sealed our place in the Final with a crushing 6-1 aggregate win over Schalke. In the Final it was sadly the same outcome as in 2009 with Barcelona convincingly beating us 3-1. Was it because of tactics or because we weren't good enough? I'd say a bit of both and while heartbreaking, there is no shame in losing to arguably the greatest football team of all time. In February after 602 appearances, Gary Neville announced his retirement. In the FA Cup we beat Liverpool at home 1-0 in Kenny Dalglish's first game back as manager, we then got unconvincing wins against Southampton away and Crawley Town at home and then went on to beat Arsenal comfortably in the Quarter-Final. Sadly in the Semi-Final against Manchester City we never showed up and missed what few chances did come our away losing 1-0 which then led to City's first trophy in 35 years... I always did have a feeling that they would go through us to get that trophy. Overall it was a very good season despite Champions League and FA Cup heartache; we did a lot better than expected but without doubt we are a team well in transition now, especially with Paul Scholes and Edwin van der Sar announcing their retirements at the end of the season and the club finally giving up on Owen Hargreaves.

UEFA Champions League: FINAL
Premier League: WINNERS
FA Cup: SEMI-FINAL
League Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2011/2012:

Notable Acquisitions: Ashley Young - David De Gea - Phil Jones - Paul Scholes.

Notable Departures: Paul Scholes (retired) - Edwin van der Sar (retired) - John O'Shea - Wes Brown - Owen Hargreaves - Gabriel Obertan - Darron Gibson - Ravel Morrison - Mame Biram Diouf.

Honours: FA Community Shield.

We started with a stunning comeback against Manchester City in the FA Community Shield after going in at half time, 2-0 down. Nani inspired a 3-2 with a last minute winner. In the Premier League We started off with a narrow 2-1 away win against West Bromwich Albion. We then got an impressive 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur then an incredible 8-2 win over Arsenal with Rooney grabbing a hattrick. We then hammered Bolton Wanderers 5-0 away and got a sloppy but exciting 3-1 win at home to Chelsea. We dropped our first points of the season in a strange away game against Stoke City but got back to winning ways with an unconvincing 2-0 home win against Norwich City. We scraped a 1-1 draw away at Liverpool but then faced the worst humiliation I have ever seen at home to Manchester City by losing 1-6, it all went horribly wrong once Jonny Evans got sent off at the start of the 2nd half. We looked shaken after that and got two edgy 1-0 wins away to Everton and home to Sunderland where Alex Ferguson celebrated his 25th anniversary as manager and had the North Stand renamed after him. We then got narrow wins against Swansea City and aston Villa, a 1-1 draw against Newcastle United which should have been a win had we not missed so many chances and had a shocker of a penalty decision go against us. Afterwards having defeated Aston Villa, Wolves, QPR, Fulham and Wigan Athletic we suffered a shock 2-3 home defeat to Blackburn Rovers in what was a poor performance, it got worse as we then lost 3-0 away to Newcastle United in a crushing and deserved defeat. We managed to turn things around with wins against Bolton Wanderers and a narrow away win against Arsenal. We then defeated Stoke City and came from 3-0 down to get a 3-3 draw away to Chelsea. Afterwards we got two more narrow wins against Liverpool and Norwich City and went on to defeat Spurs, West Bromwich Albion, Wolves, Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and QPR opening up an 8 point lead at the top of the table with 6 games to play. Unfortunately we went on to choke by losing 1-0 away to Wigan, beating Aston Villa 4-0 and then throwing away 3-1 and 4-2 leads at home to Everton to draw 4-4. Things came to a head away to Manchester City when we played defensively and poorly which led to a deserved 1-0 defeat. We won our final two games of the season against Swansea City and Sunderland but it wasn't enough as City held on to win the league, despite almost choking on the most dramatic final day in Premier League history being 1-2 down against QPR and scoring twice in injury time, it was truly heartbreaking but that's football and with some really odd results going against us we ultimately only had ourselves to blame. In The League Cup we started off with a 3-0 away win at Leeds United with Michael Owen stealing the show. In the 4th Round we defeated Aldershot Town with another 3-0 win. In the Quarter-Final we suffered a humiliating extra time 1-2 home loss to Crystal Palace with several players letting themselves down. In The Champions League, despite having quite an easy group against Benfica, Basel and Otelul Galati, we suffered a humiliating 1st Round exit after dropping a 2 goal lead at home to Basel, resulting in a 3-3 draw, blowing a 2-1 home lead against Benfica to draw 2-2, scraping an away draw away to Benfica and then losing 2-1 away to Basel to finish 3rd. In The FA Cup we defeated 10 man Manchester City in the 3rd Round with a rollercoaster ride of a 3-2 away win, it was also the day which marked the return of Paul Scholes on a short term deal. In the 4th Round however, despite dominating most of the game we lost away to Liverpool 2-1 with a late goal, sadly it will be remembered as much for the booes that Patrice Evra received after the racism controversy with Luis Suarez as much as anything. In The Europa League we continued our poor European form to scrape past Ajax 3-2 on aggregate but got well and truly beaten in the Round of 16 by Athletic Bilbao who comfortably beat us 5-3 over both legs. It rounded off a really bad season in Europe. Overall it was a very bad season, but there were also reasons to see a silver lining as we ended with a big points tally and goal difference, while we had young players who will have learned a lot from this season. It is time to press on and meet the challenge that awaits us. We managed to finally overtake Chelsea with their oil money and so need to do the same against City and their oil money.

UEFA Champions League: 1st ROUND
Premier League: 2nd
UEFA Europa League: ROUND OF 16
FA Cup: 4th ROUND
League Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2012/2013:

Notable Acquisitions: Robin van Persie - Shinji Kagawa - Alexander Büttner - Nick Powell - Angelo Henríquez.

Notable Departures: Dimitar Berbatov - Ji-sung Park - Michael Owen - Tomasz Kuszczak - Paul Pogba - Ezekiel Fryers - Ritchie De Laet.

Honours: Premier League.

The summer began with Michael Owen and Tomasz Kuszczak unsurprisingly not being offered a contract extension, Paul Pogba also left and later accused by Alex Ferguson for not treating the club with any respect. Afterwards another young and promising young player, Ezekiel Fryers, left and after 7 years of service Ji-sung Park was sold to QPR. Peter Schmeichel returned to the club as an ambassador and we secured our first signing with the promising young player Nick Powell and soon after secured the exciting Japanese attacking midfielder Shinji Kagawa. The Glazers then floated just over 10% of the club of the New York stock exchange to raise around $330-83 million (valuing the club at $3.3 billion) to reduce the debt of £423-37 million (plus the missing PIKS), however they had to settle at $14 share sales instead of the $16-20 they were hoping for, thus reducing the value of the club to much less than they valued it at (around $100 million less for the 10%). However it turned out that the family were keeping more than 50% of that for themselves and staff members with a 16 million Share Equity Incentive Award Plan, though how that money is used is anyone's guess. It was a move which once again provoked fury from United supporters as only £73 million will be used to reduce debt and this is after the £520-50 million that has already gone out servicing their debt. It is especially baffling as Fergie continues to risk his legacy by continually speaking out of turn for them, an understandable move perhaps but one that continues to alienate people. In a move that excited fans we signed Robin van Persie from Arsenal for £24 million and soon after added Alexander Büttner and Angelo Henríquez for a combined £7.4 million. We got off to a poor start though with a 1-0 away defeat against Everton, but recovered by defeating Fulham 3-2 at home and then in Fergie's 1000th game typified his spell as manager with 2 late goals to win 3-2 away to Southampton, with Robin van Persie getting a hattrick. Prior to the Southampton game we sold Dimitar Berbatov to Fulham for an eye watering loss of around £26.75 million. We destroyed Wigan Athletic 4-0 at home with a sensational 2nd half performance after Hernández's early penalty miss, and after police reports came out clearing Liverpool fans of any blame at Hillsborough we were Liverpool's next home game. We were poor throughout and got lucky when Jonjo Shelvey got sent off in the 39th minute, from then on we came from behind to win 2-1 with our penalty hoodoo finally over after van Persie converted our first successful one in 4 attempts in the 80th minute. We then lost 2-3 at home to Tottenham Hotspur (their first at our ground in 23 years) after a poor first half, some poor officiating with 3 strong penalty shouts ignored, some wasteful finishing, good goalkeeping and hitting the post and bar. After the Spurs loss we came back strong with an impressive 0-3 away win against Newcastle United, a 4-2 home win against Stoke City after more bad defending, a controversial 1-2 away win to Chelsea (our first league win there in 10 years) and a 2-1 home win against Arsenal. In the following game we once again gave the opposition a head start, coming from 2-0 down to win 2-3 away against Aston Villa thanks to another brilliant individual performance by Javier Hernández. The following game we got a shock 1-0 away loss to Norwich City but got back to winning ways the following week the day after Sir Alex Ferguson's statue was unveiled by getting a 3-1 home win against QPR after another iffy performance. The quarterly financial results came through confirming our debt had been reduced to £359.6 million and the annual bond interest had gone down to around £20 million per year, around half of the original bill. We then went on to get a 3-4 away win against Reading after an extraordinary first 34 minutes which produced 7 goals. It was then the big one with our away game against Manchester City where we won 2-3, ended their 2 year undefeated home run and subjected them to their first league loss of the season. We had a dream start with a 0-2 lead in the first 28 minutes, but we had a 3rd goal by Ashley Young wrongly ruled out for offside in the 59th minute and a good penalty shoot dismissed and that gave them a lift to make it 2-2 after 85 minutes. But cometh the hour, cometh the man and van Persie got us a 92nd minute winner with a free kick. The ending was sadly marred by crowd trouble with a pitch invasion and coins being thrown at our players in a similar incident to what happened earlier in the season at Stamford Bridge. Afterwards we got a 3-1 win against Sunderland but slipped to a 1-1 away draw against Swansea City but got back on track with a thrilling last gasp 4-3 win against Newcastle United, a 2-0 win against West Bromwich Albion and a 0-4 thrashing of Wigan Athetic. We then got a hard fought 2-1 win against Liverpool but slipped to a 1-1 away draw against Spurs after a last minute equaliser for them but after that we got two hard fought wins against Southampton and Fulham to get a Premier League record of 62 points after 25 games and go 9 points clear of City. The following week we went 12 points clear and got revenge on Everton after a 2-0 home win and then followed it up with a 0-2 away win at QPR. It was announced a few days before the QPR game that David Gill would be stepping down as Chief Executive in the summer after 10 years with us, instead he would remain as part of the board. Shinji Kagawa showed his quality with a hattrick as we then defeated Norwich City 4-0. In the following game we got a 1-0 win against Reading in a dull game to open up a mammoth 15 point lead at the top. We then got a similarly unexciting 1-0 win against Sunderland thanks to an own goal. Then against Manchester City we lost 1-2 at home to reduce the lead to 12 points, we then got back on track with a hard fought 0-2 win against Stoke. We followed that up with a hard fought 2-2 away draw against West Ham United before clinching the title with a classy 3-0 home win against Aston Villa thanks to a van Persie hattrick and with 4 games left, we finished the season off with a draw against Arsenal, a home loss to Chelsea. In what was an emotional final game at Old Trafford for Fergie we beat Swansea 2-1 with a late Ferdinand winner prior to being handed the league trophy. We ended the season with Fergie's 1,500th game in charge away against West Bromwich on May 19th in an astonishing, infuriating and record 5-5 draw. We did at least set a record of not conceding a single penalty in the league, however. In The League Cup we started off brilliantly with an impressive 2-1 home win against Newcastle. Then in the 4th Round we took on Chelsea away with a much weaker side than theirs and should have won, but individual mistakes cost us and we lost 5-4 after extra time. In The Champions League we got off to a winning if unconvincing start with a 1-0 home win against Galatasaray with Michael Carrick getting an early winner and Nani missing our 3rd consecutive penalty, we then got a ground out 1-2 away win against Cluj after coming from behind and again at home to Braga having gone 0-2 down to win 3-2 thanks to a brilliant performance by Javier Hernández. We then sealed qualification to the 2nd Round with a van Persie inspired 1-3 win away to Braga after coming from behind again. We lost the last 2 games 0-1 each after playing experimental sides. We were drawn against Real Madrid in the 2nd Round and in the away game got a 1-1 draw after a tense and close match where both sides created some big chances and we missed some really good second half ones, missing out on the chance to take a lead back to Old Trafford. In the return game (on Giggs' 1,000th professional appearance) we were the better side and were winning, then the referee sent Nani off with one of the worst decisions I have ever seen and Madrid then went on to win via a Cristiano Ronaldo winner. Even with ten men we still had them pegged back and were denied by a great performance by their goalkeeper and also had a stonewall penalty denied in the 81st minute. It was a cruel way to go out and after a 10 year wait, missing out on several players to them as well as losing Cristiano Ronaldo to them, not to mention our exit at their hands in 2000 and 2003, I was so desperate to see us finally knock them out. It was truly heartbreaking but we could at least take some heart out of how we performed, just a shame a crooked referee ruined what was surely our time. In The FA Cup we started off against West Ham United in the 3rd Round and drew 2-2 with a brilliant last minute van Persie equaliser, we then won the replay 1-0 with a Rooney winner (who then went on to miss another penalty). In the 4th Round we got an easy 4-1 home win against Fulham. In the 5th Round we drew Reading and got a narrow 2-1 win at home. We then drew Chelsea at home and after a great start we struggled and only just got a 2-2 draw after a late great save by De Gea. We lost the replay 1-0 after a poor performance and a couple of big misses so have to endure frustration for yet another year in this tournament.
Towards the end of the season Alex Ferguson shook the foundations of the club by announcing his retirement after 26.5 years in charge and 1,500 professional games in total. David Moyes was soon after unveiled as his replacement in what is a risky move due to his lack of silverware. He certainly has a lot at his disposal to do well however with Fergie taking up the role of director and ambassador, the debt gradually going down every quarter, some record breaking sponsorship deals boosting our finances, the £20 million advancement of the already state of the art Carrington training complex and a very young and talented squad.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd ROUND
Premier League: WINNERS
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: 4th ROUND

2013/14:

Notable Acquisitions: David Moyes - Juan Mata - Marouane Fellaini - Wilfried Zaha - Guillermo Varela.

Notable Departures: Alex Ferguson (retired) - David Moyes - Paul Scholes (retired) - David Gill (retired) - Fabio Da Silva - Mats Daehli.

Honours: FA Community Shield.

The summer started with news that the club had refinanced the outstanding debt to save around £10 million per season in interest payments. There were also changes to the backroom staff with Mike Phelan, Eric Steele and Rene Meulensteen all leaving and Alex Ferguson plus David Gill moving upstairs. Steve Round, Jimmy Lumsden, Chris Woods and Phil Neville all joined the coaching staff with Ryan Giggs becoming player / coach and Paul Scholes promised a role after a brief hiatus from the game. Our first signing was Uruguayan youngster, Guillermo Varela for a basic fee of £1 million that could rise to £2.5 million who joined Wilf Zaha who now moves from Crystal Palace. We did however lose another promising youngster in Mats Daehli who became homesick and returned to Norway. After a poor pre-season where we won 2, drew 2 and lost 3 we started the season off with the Community Shield curtain raiser and won 2-0 thanks to a van Persie brace in what was otherwise a dull game, but an important one as it is David Moyes' first trophy at the club. We then started the Premier League season with a ruthless 1-4 away win against Swansea with van Persie and Welbeck getting a combined 3 early shouts for goal of the season. We then followed it up with a tense 0-0 home draw against Chelsea and then lost 1-0 away to Liverpool. We signed Marouane Fellaini for £27.5 million on transfer deadline day (£4 million above his buyout clause), but failed to complete the signings of Ander Herrera and Fabio Coentrao as we ran out of time on both deals. It all just added to a frustrating summer with new CEO Ed Woodward failing miserably to convince as David Gill's replacement with failed bids, ill advised public posturing and penny pinching that made us look like a laughing stock. The fact that we overpaid for Fellaini when we could have activated his buyout clause weeks before, ran out of time to complete Herrera's deal when Woodward should have been aware of what steps needed to be taken and how long they would take - not to mention that weird story about 'impostors' - and then left getting Coentrao until the very last minute when Real Madrid had no time to sign a replacement just summed everything up. Never before have I seen United so badly run. David Moyes got his first home win in a 2-0 win against Crystal Palace, unfortunately that was followed up with a 4-1 thrashing against Manchester City which was then followed up by a shock 1-2 home loss against West Bromwich Albion. We recovered against Sunderland with an unconvincing 1-2 away win thanks a fantastic individual performance by Adnan Januzaj. We then celebrated Januzaj signing a new 5 year contract, but unfortunately we then went on to draw at home to Southampton after conceding in the 88th minute, we got back to winning ways at home to Stoke City after twice coming from behind to win 3-2 and followed it up with a 3-1 away win at Fulham and then a 1-0 home win against Arsenal thanks to a van Persie winner. We returned from the international break to get a disappointing 2-2 away draw against Cardiff City, we then followed that up with a 2-2 draw away to Spurs and then and then it went from bad to worse with two consecutive 0-1 home losses against Everton and Newcastle United. We got back to winning ways with a 0-3 away win against Aston Villa, a 3-1 home win against West Ham United and a 2-3 away win against Hull City. We continued our good run with a narrow 0-1 away win against Norwich, but it ended with another frustrating defeat against Tottenham at home. We got back to winning ways with a 2-0 home win against Swansea but then lost 3-1 away to Chelsea before winning 2-0 at home against Cardiff in Juan Mata's debut and then losing again to Stoke away, 2-1, we followed that up with a 2-2 draw at home to Fulham with a 94th minute goal conceded and then a 0-0 away to Arsenal. We got a huge boost with news of Rooney signing a new 5.5 year contract and the day after he scored in a 0-2 away win against Crystal Palace, we followed that up with an another good performance in a 0-3 win against West Brom. We got battered 0-3 against Liverpool in the derby though with Vidic getting another sending off against them. After that humiliation we put in a solid performance to win 0-2 against West Ham but got humiliated again at home to Man City, 0-3. We won again though against Aston Villa, 4-1 and then 0-4 against Newcastle United before losing 2-0 against Everton which proved to be Moyes' final game in charge after he was replaced by Ryan Giggs as interim player manager for the remainder of the season. Giggs installed Paul Scholes as part of the coaching staff and promoted Nicky Butt to assistant manager as Steve Round and Jimmy Lumsden departed. He got off to a winning start with a 4-0 home win against Norwich in what was our best performance of the season, however that was followed up by a 0-1 loss to Sunderland. Our final home game was a 3-1 win against Hull with James Wilson scoring twice on his debut and Ryan Giggs becoming the first player-manager since 1927, and the season ended with a 1-1 away draw against Southampton. In The Champions League we got off to a winning start with an exciting 4-2 home win against Bayer Leverkusen and followed that up with a hard fought 1-1 away draw against Shakhtar Donetsk. We then got back to winning ways against Real Sociedad with a 1-0 home win and drew 0-0 away. We secured qualification in style though with a 0-5 away win against Bayer Leverkusen in our biggest ever European away win. We secured top spot with an unconvincing 1-0 home win against Shakhtar. In the 2nd Round we lost the first leg 2-0 away to Olympiakos, after a lousy performance but won 3-0 at home with a van Persie hattrick to advance to the next round. We drew Bayern Munich in the Quarter-Final and drew the home game 1-1 after a spirited performance, in the second leg we played fantastically well for 57 minutes, but once we took the lead we lost our shape and lost 3-1 to exit the tournament. In The League Cup we beat Liverpool 1-0 in the 3rd Round and followed that up with a 4-0 win against Norwich City. We progressed to the Semi-Final with a scrappy 0-2 win away to Stoke City. We lost the first leg away to Sunderland after a lacklustre performance and an iffy penalty decision for the winner. We then won the second leg 2-1 after extra time with a dramatic finish, but lost 1-2 in the penalty shoot with De Gea saving two and Sunderland missing another penalty, but us missing 4 of ours (Welbeck, Januzaj, Jones and Rafael). In The FA Cup we suffered a shock 1-2 home exit in the 3rd Round against Swansea City, with a late Fabio sending off and winning goal. In the January transfer window we received a huge lift with the shock signing of Juan Mata for a club record £37.1 million. The end of the season provided a slightly feel good factor with The Class of '92 seeing the season out, performances picking up slightly and a new era around the corner. David Moyes was sadly even worse than I expected, he never got the respect of the dressing room and as a result never able to adapt. With all of the unwanted records he broke and poor results the club had no choice but to move on. The summer ahead shall be interesting...

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premier League: 7th
FA Cup: 3rd ROUND
League Cup: SEMI-FINAL
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2014/15:

Notable Acquisitions: Louis van Gaal - Angel Di Maria - Radamel Falcao (loan) - Ander Herrera - Luke Shaw - Daley Blind - Marcos Rojo - Victor Valdes - Tim Fosu-Mensah - Vanja Milinkovic.

Notable Departures: Ryan Giggs (retired) - Nemanja Vidic - Rio Ferdinand - Patrice Evra - Darren Fletcher - Danny Welbeck - Shinji Kagawa - Anderson - Wilfried Zaha - Federico Macheda - Alexander Büttner - Bébé - Michael Keane - Tom Lawrence - Marnick Vermijl.

Honours: N/A.

The summer started with captain Nemanja Vidic leaving after 300 games for the club and then Rio Ferdinand following shortly afterwards. We announced Louis van Gaal as manager - our first ever foreign manager - with Ryan Giggs as his assistant, Frans Hoek as goalkeeping coach in place of Chris Woods, and Marcel Bout head of the scouting department. Ryan Giggs announced his retirement from playing after 963 appearances for the club. Federico Macheda's release followed and the unpopular club owner, Malcolm Glazer, died at 86 years old. Alexander Büttner departed with a strange parting shot at the club and manager and then we got down to business by signing Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw at just under a combined £60 million. Albert Stuivenberg then joined the coaching staff to improve the academy along with Max Reckers. We announced a record breaking £750 million kit deal with adidas over 10 years starting from 2015 and then we sold Patrice Evra and Bébé. We had a strong pre-season tour of USA, playing excellent football and thrashing LA Galaxy to win The Chevrolet Cup and then defeating Roma, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Liverpool to win The International Champions Cup. It was confirmed that of The Class of '92 that only Nicky Butt was being retained, with Phil Neville released and Paul Scholes not taking up a role. We completed the signing of Vanja Milinkovic and immediately loaned him back out as part of the deal and then we handed Wayne Rooney captaincy with Darren Fletcher named vice captain ahead of the new season. We lost the opening game 1-2 with a poor home performance against Swansea City and our first home league loss on the opening day since 1972. We later wrapped up the signing of Marcos Rojo for £16 million with Nani heading out on loan as part of the deal. We then got a disappointing 1-1 away draw against Sunderland. We smashed our transfer record signing Angel Di Maria and later that day got a humiliating 4-0 away loss in the League Cup 2nd Round against MK Dons. We got another frustrating 0-0 draw against Burnley on the same day we agreed a deal to sign Daley Blind for £13.85 million which was completed on deadline day. We sold Shinji Kagawa, Danny Welbeck and Tom Lawrence and then pulled off a shock by signing Radamel Falcao for an initial £4.8 million one year loan deal (£265k per week wages) with the option to make it permanent at £43.5 million. We returned to action with an outstanding 4-0 home win against QPR but the feel good factor didn't last too long as we had a shocking capitulation away to Leicester City the following week having been 1-3 ahead to lose 5-3 with a poor performance by Mark Clattenburg. It was the first time in Premier League history that we lost having had a 2 goal lead. Tony Strudwick was demoted to working with the youth players and was replaced by Jos van Dijk as first team fitness coach ahead of a nervy 2-1 home win against West Ham United, with Wayne Rooney getting a straight red card on 59 minutes. We recruited Matt Radcliffe as new physio from Southampton, and Ji-sung Park returned as an ambassador ahead of another nervy home 2-1 win against Everton. We followed that up with another disappointing away draw against West Bromwich, Victor Valdes came to the club to train and possibly sign a deal, and then got a cagey 1-1 home draw against Chelsea with a last minute equaliser but followed it up with another loss against Manchester City after a spirited performance for 52 minutes with 10 men after Chris Smalling stupidly got himself sent off. We got back on track with a scrappy 1-0 win against Crystal Palace and another scrappy 1-2 away win against Arsenal, our first of the season and followed it up with a comfortable 3-0 win against Hull City and then a nervy 2-1 win against Stoke City. We extended our winning run to 5 games with a fortunate 1-2 away win against Southampton, we then got a 3-0 home win against Liverpool despite an iffy performance. Michael Carrick was given vice-captaincy and next game the winning run ended with a disappointing 1-1 away draw against Aston Villa, but we got back to winning ways with a 3-1 home win against Newcastle then got another disappointing away draw against Tottenham followed by a draw against Stoke City. We signed Victor Valdes on a free transfer and then our undefeated run came to an end with a home loss to Southampton which had been coming with the very questionable 3-5-2 formation. We got back to winning ways with a hard fought away win against QPR and then a 3-1 home win against Leicester and followed it up with a hard fought away draw against West Ham and an equally hard fought home win against Burnley but lost away to Swansea. We got back to winning ways with a 2-0 home win against Sunderland with Rooney scoring twice to make history (the first player to score 10+ league goals in 11 consecutive seasons) and a late smash and grab away win against Newcastle. We finally hit form with a convincing 3-0 home win against Tottenham and then a hard fought away win against Liverpool who had Steven Gerrard sent off in his final game against us after only being on the pitch for 40 seconds, we then beat Aston Villa 3-1 and got a memorable 4-2 home win against Man City then the winning run came to an end with a spirited 1-0 defeat against Chelsea. We hit a bad spell with a shock 3-0 loss against Everton and 0-1 home loss against West Bromwich, but we beat Crystal Palace 2-1 away and got a 1-1 home draw with Arsenal to secure 4th spot. In the FA Cup we got a scrappy 0-2 win against Yeovil Town in the 3rd round and then got a disappointing 0-0 away draw against Cambridge United which we won 3-0 in the replay ahead of selling Wilfried Zaha and Marnick Vermijl on deadline day and letting Darren Fletcher and Anderson leave on free transfers. We then progressed to the Quarter-Final with a 1-3 away win against Preston North End to set up a home encounter with Arsenal which we lost 1-2 thanks to some baffling decisions on the manager's part, a sending off and a Danny Welbeck gifted winner.

Premier League: 4th
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: 2nd ROUND

2015/16:

Notable Acquisitions: Anthony Martial - Bastian Schweinsteiger - Memphis Depay - Morgan Schneiderlin - Matteo Darmian - Sergio Romero.

Notable Departures: Angel Di Maria - Robin van Persie - Radamel Falcao - Nani - Javier Hernández - Rafael Da Silva - Jonny Evans - Tom Cleverley - Anders Lindegaard - Angelo Henriquez - Ben Amos - Saidy Janko - Reece James - Tom Thorpe.

Honours: FA Cup.

We made a quick start to our summer spending with the capture of Memphis Depay. We took up the option NOT to sign Radamel Falcao after he failed to impress, we also offloaded Robin van Persie, Nani, Javier Hernández, Rafael Da Silva, Jonny Evans, Anders Lindegaard, Angelo Henriquez, Ben Amos, Tom Thorpe, Reece James and Saidy Janko. Angel Di Maria wanted to leave so was sold to PSG for £44.3 million ahead of the new season. We signed Italian fullback Matteo Darmian, and then on the same day we signed Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger (our first ever German player), and soon after got Sergio Romero on a free transfer before shocking the football world with the signing of Anthony Martial for an initial £36.8 million which could rise to £58.8 million. We  reluctantly agreed to sell David De Gea on deadline day for £18.3 million + Keylor Navas, but the move fell through due to the paperwork not being processed in time and soon after De Gea signed a new long term contract with us. We started off in the Premier League with a solid but unspectacular 1-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur, a 1-0 away win against Aston Villa and then a very disappointing 0-0 home draw against Newcastle United before losing again to Swansea in a 2-1 defeat. We got back to winning ways though with an impressive 3-1 home win against Liverpool with Anthony Martial scoring a spectacular individual goal on his debut We then got a hard fought 3-2 away win against Southampton and a routine 3-0 home win against Sunderland. We got taken apart 3-0 away to Arsenal but got back to winning ways with a 3-0 away win against Everton before getting 0-0 bore draw against Manchester City and the same result away to Crystal Palace. We got back to winning ways with a 2-0 home win against West Bromwich Albion and a scrappy 2-1 away win against Watford before drawing 1-1 away to Leicester City. We got another disappointing 0-0 draw at home to West Ham United and then we lost 2-1 against both Bournemouth and Norwich City as well as 2-0 away to Stoke City. We stopped the rot with a 0-0 home draw against Chelsea, we then ground out a 2-1 win against Swansea City before twice squandering the lead against Newcastle United to draw 3-3. We then ground out a 1-0 win away to Liverpool before losing by the same scoreline to Southampton which sparked fan revolt. We beat Stoke City 3-0 at home before conceding late to Chelsea to draw 1-1 followed by another poor defeat, this time to Sunderland. We got back to winning ways with a hard fought 3-2 home win against Arsenal despite being weakened by injury, we scraped past Watford with a late goal and then lost away to West Bromwich Albion with Juan Mata going from hero to villain with a soft sending off. We returned to winning ways with a 0-1 win against Manchester City, then won by the same scoreline at home against Everton where Martial scored our 1,000th Premier League home goal and the Sir Bobby Charlton stand was renamed. We got thrashed 3-0 by Spurs before grinding out a boring 1-0 win against Aston Villa followed by a 2-0 win against Crystal Palace and then a 1-1 draw against Leicester. In the final run in we beat Norwich 1-0 away. Unfortunately we blew it at the final hurdle with a 3-2 away loss to West Ham after conceding two late, although we won our final game 3-1 against Bournemouth to tie up automatic Europa League qualification. In The League Cup we started off with a 3-0 home win against Ipswich Town but were then knocked out by Middlesbrough after a frustrating 0-0 home draw and then a 1-3 penalty shoot out defeat with poor misses by Rooney, Carrick and Young. In The Champions League we beat Club Brugge 3-1 at home in the qualifying round and then 0-4 away to win 7-1 on aggregate and get into the group stage. We opened up with a 2-1 loss away to PSV Eindhoven where Luke Shaw broke his leg after a horror tackle and then came from behind to get a hard fought 2-1 win at home to Wolfsburg. We got a hard fought 1-1 draw away to CSKA Moscow and then an equally hard fought 1-0 win at home against them before getting a disappointing 0-0 home draw against PSV, our fate was then sealed with a 3-2 away loss to Wolfsburg which relegated us to the Europa League. In The FA Cup we got a 1-0 home win against Sheffield United in the 3rd Round after a dreadful performance and then in the 4th Round won 3-1 away to Derby County followed by a 3-0 away win against Shrewsbury Town. We then came from behind to set up a replay against West Ham United in the Quarter-Final which we won 2-1 to set up a Semi-Final against Everton which we won in the most dramatic of circumstances with the winning goal in the 93rd minute of stoppage time. In our final against Crystal Palace we went behind to a late goal but equalised almost immediately to set up extra time which we won - after going down to 10 men - with a spectacular winner by Jesse Lingard to give us our first FA Cup win in 12 years. We got off to a poor start in The Europa League with a 2-1 away loss against FC Midtjylland but put that right with a 5-1 home win to win 6-3 on aggregate and set up a Round of 16 encounter with Liverpool, our first ever encounter in Europa. We lost the first leg 2-0 at Anfield after what was arguably our worst performance in years, we started the return leg well but the performance fizzled out and we lost 1-3 on aggregate.
Overall it was a disappointing season with the worst football I have ever seen us play. The results weren't good enough and missing out on 4th was a major blow. Winning the FA Cup though was a fantastic feel good end to the season.

UEFA Champions League: 1st ROUND
Premier League: 5th
UEFA Europa League: ROUND OF 16
FA Cup: WINNERS
League Cup: 4th ROUND

2016/17:

Notable Acquisitions: Jose Mourinho - Paul Pogba - Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Henrikh Mkhitaryan - Eric Bailly.

Notable Departures: Louis van Gaal - Ryan Giggs - Bastian Schweinsteiger - Memphis Depay - Morgan Schneiderlin - Victor Valdes - Paddy McNair - Nick Powell - Tyler Blackett - Will Keane - Donald Love - James Weir - Sean Goss.

Honours: UEFA Europa League - League Cup - FA Community Shield.

We started off the summer by sacking Louis van Gaal after 2 years in charge. He went out with the FA Cup, but the brand of football had been poor and our results weren't all too great so the club had little choice but to make the call. He was replaced by Jose Mourinho. He started off by bringing in Ricardo Formosinho, Carlos Lalin and Emilio Alvarez as coaches, Silvino Louro as goalkeeping coach, Rui Faria as assistant, Giovanni Cerra as analyst, Tommy Moller Nielsen as a scout and also appointed John Peacock as Academy Consultant. New contracts were handed out to Marcus Rashford, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Michael Carrick, while Victor Valdes and Nick Powell were both released and Tyler Blackett, Will Keane and James Weir were sold. His first signing was Eric Bailly. We captured Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a free transfer then the following day it was announced that Ryan Giggs was ending his 29 year stay at the club to pursue a managerial career. We then signed Henrikh Mkhitaryan. We started the season off by getting a hard fought 2-1 win against Leicester City in The Community Shield after a late Ibrahimovic winner. We then broke the world record transfer fee by bring Paul Pogba back in a deal which could be worth £93.6 million. We sold both Paddy McNair and Donald Love to Sunderland and then started our Premier League season by beating Bouremouth 3-1 away, we then beat Southampton 2-0 at home and then beat Hull City 0-1 with a last gasp Marcus Rashford winner. Our winning run ended with a disappointing 1-2 loss to Manchester City and then a 3-1 away loss to Watford before we got back to winning ways with an impressive 4-1 home win against Leicester and then dropping 2 points at home to Stoke City after missing numerous chances and conceding late on. We got a hard earned point at Anfield before taking a 4-0 hammering away to Chelsea, things got worse after a frustrating 0-0 at home to Burnley, but we got back to winning ways with a 1-3 away win against Swansea City. More frustration followed with a 1-1 draw against Arsenal after they scored with their only shot on goal in the 89th minute, in the following game we got an equally frustrating 1-1 draw against West Ham United and yet another frustrating 1-1 draw away to Everton after conceding a late penalty. We finally ended our drawing streak by getting a hard fought 1-0 win against Tottenham followed by away wins against Crystal Palace, West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland and a nervy 2-1 win against Middlesbrough after a goal was wrongly disallowed and then we scored 2 goals in a minute late on. The winning run continued with a 0-2 away win to West Ham, we then sold Morgan Schneiderlin to Everton ahead of our 9 game winning run coming to an end with a disappointing 1-1 home draw against an understrength Liverpool. We sold Memphis Depay to Lyon ahead of another disappointing 1-1 draw against Stoke, the silver lining being that Wayne Rooney finally broke Sir Bobby's record. We got our 3rd consecutive draw in another bitterly disappoint result at home to Hull before getting back to winning ways in a 0-3 win against Leicester. We then beat Watford 2-0 before yet another draw against 10 man Bournemouth. We returned to winning ways with a hard fought 1-3 away win against Middlesbrough and then let Bastian Schweinsteiger leave on a free transfer during the international break. We then dropped yet more points at home with another frustrating result against West Bromwich Albion after drawing 0-0 and yet another one with a 1-1 home draw against Everton. Our impressive away form continued with a 0-3 win against Sunderland to all but relegate Moyes' side and followed it up with an outstanding 2-0 win against Chelsea in what was the performance of the season. We won our third consecutive game with a 0-2 win against Burnley, followed by a tense 0-0 draw away to Manchester City and then yet another 1-1 home draw, this time against Swansea. The worst 25 game unbeaten run in history ended the following weekend with a poor 2-0 loss against a poor Arsenal side to all but end our chances of finishing in the top 4. Our season continued to fizzle out after losing 2-1 in Tottenham's last ever game at White Hart Lane after fielding another weakened side. We then got a drab 0-0 away to Southampton before finishing the season with a routine 2-0 home win against Crystal Palace which was notable for playing a lot of youngsters, including bringing on 16 year old Angel Gomes, the youngest debutant in the Premier League era. In The Europa League we got off to a poor start with a surprise 1-0 away loss against Feyenoord, but reversed that scoreline against Zorya Luhansk in a dull game, we then turned on the style to beat Fenerbahce 4-1 only to lose 2-1 in the return game after a drab performance. We then got an impressive 4-0 home win against Feyenoord and won our first European away game in years to beat Zorya Luhansk 0-2 and progress to the Round of 32. We won the opening leg 3-0 at home against Saint-Etienne with an Ibrahimovic hattrick and then finished the job with a 0-1 away win. We got a 1-1 away draw against FC Rostov in the first leg on an awful pitch before finishing the job with a laboured 1-0 home win. We played RSC Anderlecht in the Quarter-Final and after dominating the opening away game we again surrendered the lead and got a frustrating 1-1 draw. The return game was equally as frustrating with the usual missed chances and 2 very controversial disallowed goals decisions, but we won 2-1 after extra time. We played Celta Vigo in the Semi-Final and won 0-1 in the first leg after an excellent performance and then just squeezed our way through to the Final after nervy 1-1 draw at Old Trafford. In The Final we got a hard fought 2-0 win against a very youthful Ajax side to win our first ever Europa League and become one of only a handful of clubs (AFC Ajax, FC Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Juventus) to win all 3 of The Champions League, The Cup Winners' Cup and The Europa League. Celebrations were overshadowed though due to the terrorist attack in the Manchester Arena a few days prior to the game. In The League Cup we got a 1-3 away win against Northampton Town in the 3rd Round and then beat Manchester City 1-0 in the 4th Round before a 4-1 Quarter-Final win against West Ham United. In the Semi-Final we won the first leg 2-0 against Hull City before a 2-1 loss in the return leg to end our 17 game unbeaten run but win 3-2 on aggregate. In the Final against Southampton we struggled against a physically fresher side and blew a 2-0 lead, but won 3-2 with an 87th minute Ibrahimovic winner to win our second trophy of the season and to finally beat Liverpool's major honours tally of 41. Mourinho also made history by being the first ever Manchester United manager to win a major honour in his first season. In The FA Cup we got off to a flying start by beating Reading 4-0 where Jaap Stam made his Old Trafford return and Wayne Rooney matched Sir Bobby Charlton's scoring record. We sold Sean Goss and then got another 4-0 win at home to Wigan Athletic in the 4th Round. In the 5th Round we got a hard fought 2-1 away win against Blackburn Rovers which set up a difficult away game against Chelsea in the Quarter-Final which was once again decided by the referee after a wrongful sending off led to a 1-0 loss.

Premier League: 6th
UEFA Europa League: WINNERS
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: WINNERS
FA Community Shield: WINNERS

2017/18:

Notable Acquisitions: Alexis Sanchez - Romelu Lukaku - Nemanja Matic - Victor Lindelof.

Notable Departures: Wayne Rooney - Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Henrikh Mkhitaryan - Adnan Januzaj - Guillermo Varela - Josh Harrop.

Honours: N/A.

We finished last season on a real high after finishing the season with 3 pieces of silverware and getting back into The Champions League as a result. The league season was frustrating and we only improved marginally in our general play, but undoubtedly it was a successful season. We started our summer business by announcing that Ibrahimovic had been released but would be staying on to complete his rehab with the club. Our first signing was Victor Lindelof at an initial £30.7 million. Josh Harrop chose to leave In order to play regularly and it was then the end of an era as Wayne Rooney made his return to Everton. We then made the blockbuster signing of Romelu Lukaku for an initial £75 million. Michael Carrick was then named captain with no vice captain for the season. Adnan Januzaj was sold for a potential £9.7 million. We then bought Nemanja Matic for a potential £40 million ahead of the season curtain raiser in the UEFA Super Cup against Real Madrid where we lost 2-1. We sold Guillermo Varela and then started the Premier League season off with a fantastic 4-0 home win against West Ham United and then repeated that score line away to Swansea City. Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed a new one year contract ahead of playing Leicester City where we won 2-0 but the winning run came to an end with another frustrating draw away to Stoke. We got back to winning ways with a 4-0 home win against Everton followed by a hard fought 1-0 away win against Southampton and then back to 4-0 again, this time against Crystal Palace. Our winning run came to an end with another drab 0-0 against Liverpool at Anfield, and that was followed up by a shock 2-1 away loss against Huddersfield Town. We got back to winning ways with a narrow 1-0 win against Tottenham but that scoreline was reversed a week later with yet another loss away to Chelsea. We again got back to winning ways with a classy 4-1 win against Newcastle United and a much less convincing 1-0 win against Brighton & Hove Albion and then back to scoring 4 again with an impressive 4-2 away win against Watford followed by a 3-1 away win against Arsenal. The 40 game unbeaten home run came to an end against Manchester City who controversially beat us 1-2, but we won the following game 1-0 against Bournemouth followed by another narrow win away to West Bromwich. We dropped 2 points away to 10 man Leicester with a host of missed chances and a last second equaliser and then came from 2-0 down to draw against Burnley, the drawing run continued with a drab 0-0 against Southampton and we finally got back to winning ways with a 2-0 away win against Everton followed up by a 3-0 win against Stoke. The winning run continued with a hard fought 0-1 win away to Burnley ahead of announcing a sensational swap deal between Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alexis Sanchez. The good run came to an end with a bitterly disappointing 2-0 loss away to Tottenham, but we reversed that scoreline against Huddersfield Town before losing again away to Newcastle. Our bad run of form came to an end with a scrappy 2-1 win against Chelsea followed by another comeback from 2-0 down away to Crystal Palace to win it 2-3 at the death. We beat Liverpool 2-1 with a Rashford brace, we got a routine 2-0 against Swansea City and then we produced a stunning comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against City to delay their title celebrations. Our 5 win league run came to an end against the bottom team West Brom after a shock 0-1 defeat, we beat Bournemouth 0-2 a few days later followed by a 2-1 win against Arsenal and then yet another loss against lowly opposition with a 1-0 loss against Brighton. We finally wrapped up 2nd place with a 0-0 draw against West Ham and ended the season with a 1-0 win over Watford to finish on 81 points, our highest total in 5 years. In The Champions League we got off to a winning start with a 3-0 home win against FC Basel, we then beat CSKA Moscow 1-4 away and got a 1-0 away win against Benfica followed by another laboured 2-0 win over Benfica. The winning run came to an end with a 1-0 loss away to Basel but we came from beyond against CSKA Moscow to win the game and the group. In the 2nd Round we got a 0-0 bore draw away to Sevilla followed by a shock 1-2 home defeat to exit the tournament in what was a disgraceful performance. In the League Cup we got off to a winning start with an emphatic 4-1 home win against Burton Albion followed by a 0-2 away win against Swansea City in the 4th Round. There was a shock exit in the Quarter-Final though when we lost 2-1 away to Bristol City after a poor performance and a last minute winner. In the FA Cup we defeated Derby County 2-0 at home in the 3rd Round, we beat Yeovil Town 0-4 in the 4th Round and advanced to the Quarter-Final after beating Huddersfield 0-2 away. We then advanced to the Semi-Final after a laboured 2-0 win against Bright & Hove Albion at home, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was released shortly afterwards after struggling to properly recover from his injury last season. We got to the Final after coming from behind to beat Tottenham 2-1. We lost 0-1 to Chelsea in the Final to round off a poor season.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd ROUND
Premier League: 2nd
FA Cup: FINAL
League Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
UEFA Super Cup: RUNNERS UP

2018/19:

Notable Acquisitions: Ole Solskjaer - Fred - Diogo Dalot - Lee Grant.

Notable Departures: Jose Mourinho - Michael Carrick (retired) - Marouane Fellaini - Daley Blind - Sam Johnstone.

Honours: N/A.

Michael Carrick retired and joined the coaching staff, Rui Faria left as assistant manager, Kieran McKenna was promoted from U18s manager to head first team coach and Stefano Rapetti was appointed as fitness coach. The summer business began with the signing of Diogo Dalot with Fred being announced soon after. We sold Sam Johnstone to West Bromwich Albion and replaced him with Lee Grant, Daley Blind was then sold to Ajax and Antonio Valencia was named as club captain. There was bad news with our chief scout Javier Ribalta leaving to take on a different role at Zenit St. Petersburg and the pre-season tour of USA was a failure with mostly low attendances, player injuries and poor performances. The summer finally ended on a sour note after failing to get any more business done with the manager being denied his preferred targets. The club did however revive its women's team with work being done at the training ground to give them their own area. There was also work done at Old Trafford to enhance the dressing room, players tunnels and a tidy to the outside. The Premier League season started off on a winning note with a 2-1 win against Leicester City and was followed by a dreadful 3-2 defeat away to Brighton and then a 0-3 loss to Tottenham making it our worst start in 26 years. We got a much needed win away to Burnley ahead of the first international break followed by a scrappy 2-1 win away to Watford, though the winning run came to an end with a mediocre 1-1 home draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers. We got beat 3-1 by West Ham in what was probably the worst performance I have seen over the past 5 years and then came from 0-2 down to beat Newcastle United 3-2. We were around 30 seconds away from getting a rare win away to Chelsea when they equalised right at the very end to draw 2-2. We beat Everton 2-1 with what had been our best performance of the season to date and once again came from behind to beat Bournemouth 1-2 with a last minute winner. The decent run ended with a predictable 3-1 battering against Manchester City and the following weekend we got a 0-0 with Crystal Palace followed by 2-2 draws against both Southampton and Arsenal. We got back to winning ways with a 4-1 thrashing of Fulham and then depressingly and predictably got smashed 3-1 by Liverpool. A couple of days after the Liverpool loss Mourinho was finally sacked! All of his coaching staff with the exception of Emilio Alvarez left with him, he got a payoff in the region of £15 million and was replaced by Ole Solskjaer and Mick Phelan on an interim basis. They got off to a flyer with a scintillating 1-5 win away to Cardiff, the first time we have scored 5 goals in 5.5 years, we then beat Huddersfield Town 3-1 after another attacking display and Solskjaer's great start continued with a 4-1 win against Bournemouth. Solskjaer became only the second manager in the club's history with Matt Busby to win his first 4 games with a hard fought 0-2 win against Newcastle. Solskjaer had his first major test against Tottenham and scraped a 0-1 win meaning he won his first 6 games in charge, surpassing Busby's record. We then beat Brighton 2-1 meaning Solskjaer also beat Busby's league winning start of 5 games and went level with Carlo Ancelotti (2009/10) and Pep Guardiola (2016/17) having won his first 6 league games of the Premier League era. The 8 game winning run came to an end with a disappointing 2-2 draw at home to Burnley, we sold Marouane Fellaini, then got back to winning ways with a hard fought 0-1 win against Leicester. We finally got to 4th in the table with an impressive 0-3 win against Fulham, the next game was the big one against Liverpool and after being ravaged by injury both before the game and during the first half where 4 players got injured and we could only replace 3, we ground a well deserved 0-0 draw. We beat Crystal Palace 1-3 and then edged a 3-2 win against Southampton before Solskjaer's record away run ended with an unlucky 2-0 defeat against Arsenal. Solskjaer was announced as the permanent manager ahead of the scrappy 2-1 win against Watford, with a compensation fee of £1 million agreed with Molde. We played better but ultimately fell to the same 2-1 defeat in the league against Wolves in what was a massive setback for our top 4 hopes, but managed to get back on track with a scrappy 2-1 win against West Ham only to fall back off track again next game with a disgraceful 4-0 loss against Everton. We lost again, 0-2 to Manchester City and then got a disappointing 1-1 draw with Chelsea which all but ended any top 4 hopes and those hopes ended entirely with a dismal 1-1 draw against the second worst Premier League team of all time in Huddersfield. Mick Phelan was announced as the permanent assistant manager and the season ended with another awful loss, this time 0-2 to relegated Cardiff City. We got off to a winning start in The Champions League after beating Young Boys 0-3 followed by a drab 0-0 at home to Valencia and then an equally drab 0-1 home defeat against Juventus. We came from behind to score 2 goals late on in Turin and beat Juventus 1-2 and sealed qualification with a poor 1-0 win against Young Boys and then ended the group stage losing 2-1 away to Valencia and subsequently blowing the chance to top the group. In the 2nd Round we lost the first leg, 0-2, at home to Paris Saint-Germain handing Solskjaer his first defeat as our manager. Miraculously, despite so many injuries and having a mountain to climb, we won the second leg 1-3 with a last minute penalty, the first time in Champions League history that a side has overturned a 0-2 first leg defeat. We lost the first leg of the Quarter-Final, 0-1, against FC Barcelona and then 3-0 away showing just how far behind Europe's elite we are. We got knocked straight out of The League Cup after a dreadful performance against Derby County where we lost 7-8 on penalties after a 2-2 home draw. We got off to a winning start in the FA Cup with a 2-0 win against Reading in the 3rd Round making Solskjaer go level with Matt Busby by winning his first 5 games in charge and also to become the first manager in history at any club to win his first 5 games by 2 goals or more. Solskjaer then made it 8 wins in a row with an excellent 1-3 win against Arsenal in the 4th Round, followed by a rare win at Stamford Bridge in the 5th Round, beating Chelsea 0-2. Our run came to an end in the Quarter-Final after a poor performance away to Wolves, losing 2-1.

UEFA Champions League: QUARTER-FINAL
Premier League: 6th
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: 3rd ROUND

2019/20:

Notable Acquisitions: Bruno Fernandes - Harry Maguire - Aaron Wan-Bissaka - Daniel James - Odion Ighalo (loan) - Nathan Bishop.

Notable Departures: Romelu Lukaku - Ander Herrera - Ashley Young - Antonio Valencia - Matteo Darmian - James Wilson.

Honours: N/A.

The summer started with the immediate departures of Ander Herrera and Antonio Valencia on frees, followed by a number of releases, the most notable name being James Wilson. We made our first summer signing by landing Daniel James or up to £18 million, followed by Aaron Wan-Bissaka for up to £50 million and then Harry Maguire in a world record £80 million fee. Our final bit of summer business was to sell Romelu Lukaku for £74 million which halved our net spend for the summer and left us weaker, on paper, in both midfield and attack, some rebuild this! We started our Premier League season off with a 4-0 win over Chelsea, the club announced that the global fanbase was up to 1.1 billion ahead of a 1-1 draw away to Wolves. We then suffered our first loss of the season at home to Crystal Palace. A few days later Alexis Sanchez was loaned out to Inter Milan for the season with United reportedly covering £6 million of his annual wage. Chris Smalling was then loaned out for a £2.7 million and Matteo Darmian was sold for £3.6 million. The poor start continued after a 1-1 draw away to Southampton, but we managed to then grind out a 1-0 win against Leicester City and then lost 2-0 away to West Ham United. We drew 1-1 at home to Arsenal, we then lost 1-0 away to lowly Newcastle after yet another shocking performance, thankfully we got a decent performance the following game with a spirited 1-1 draw against Liverpool. We finally got a convincing win with a 1-3 victory over Norwich City. We got back to losing with a 1-0 loss against Bournemouth after yet another lifeless display, that was followed by an impressive 3-1 win against Brighton. The winning run came to an end with a 3-3 draw against Sheffield United and a 2-2 draw against Aston Villa. In typical fashion we turned back to back draws against newly promoted opposition into back to back 2-1 wins at home to Tottenham then away to Manchester City before drawing 1-1 at home to Everton and then losing 2-0 away to Watford. We got back to winning ways with a 4-1 win against Newcastle and a 0-2 win against Burnley but as ever a short burst of form is never sustained these days as we then went on to lose 2-0 against Arsenal before winning 4-0 against Norwich. We got back to losing again afterwards with 2-0 losses against Liverpool and Burnley. We signed Bruno Fernandes, Odion Ighalo (on loan) and Nathan Bishop and loaned out Marcos Rojo ahead of the drab 0-0 draw against Wolves. After the winter break we won again at Stamford Bridge, beating Chelsea 0-2 and then won 3-0 against Watford followed by a scrappy 1-1 draw against Everton. We secured a league double over Man City with a dramatic 2-0 win which was the last league game before lockdown due to COVID-19. When the league resumed we drew 1-1 away to Tottenham, followed by a 3-0 home win against Sheffield United in which we were the first team in Premier League history to make 5 substitutions at the same time. We followed that win up with the same scoreline against Brighton, a 5-2 win against Bournemouth and a 0-3 win against Aston Villa making us the first team in Premier League history to win 4 consecutive games by 3 goals or more. The winning run came to an end with yet another frustrating draw against Southampton. We got back to winning ways with a scrappy 0-2 win against Crystal Palace but dropped points again, drawing 1-1 against West Ham after a leggy performance and then sealed 3rd place and Champions League football with a gritty 0-2 away to Leicester. We got off to a winning start in The Europa League with a scrappy 1-0 win against FC Astana, we followed it up with a drab 0-0 away against AZ Alkmaar and an equally drab 0-1 win against Partizan Belgrade. We sealed qualification to the next round with a 3-0 win against Partizan Belgrade, we then finished off the group stage with a 2-1 loss against Astana and a 4-0 win against AZ Alkmaar to finish 1st. In The Round of 32 we draw the first leg, 1-1, away against Club Brugge but hammered them 5-0 in the second leg winning 6-1 on aggregate. We played LASK in The Round of 16 and won 0-5 in the first leg in an empty stadium and then 2-1 at Old Trafford several months later. In the Quarter-Final we scraped past FC Copenhagen 1-0 after extra-time and then got knocked out in the Semi-Final by Sevilla after missing countless chances to score. That result rounded off a 3rd consecutive season without silverware and gave us another unwanted record in that we're the only team to lose European, FA Cup and League Cup Semi-Finals in the same season. In The League Cup we beat Rochdale 5-3 on penalties after drawing 1-1 in the 3rd Round. In the 4th Round we scraped past Chelsea with a world class free-kick by Rashford to win 1-2 and then get a comfortable 3-0 win against Colchester United in the Quarter-Final. We lost 1-3 in the first leg of the Semi-Final against Manchester City after a shocker of a performance, we somehow won the second leg 0-1 but it wasn't enough. In The FA Cup we drew 0-0 away to Wolves in the 3rd Round and edged a 1-0 win in the replay. A few days later we sold Ashley Young to Inter Milan for £1.3 million with Harry Maguire being named as new captain. In the 4th Round we hammered Tranmere Rovers 0-6 and in the 5th Round we beat Derby County 0-3. We had a really poor outing in the Quarter-Final, but managed to scrape a 1-2 win against Norwich City in extra time, during that game we were the first team in FA Cup history to make 6 substitutions during one game. We got knocked out in the Semi-Final after a dreadful performance against Chelsea, losing 1-3.

Premier League: 3rd
UEFA Europa League: SEMI-FINAL
FA Cup: SEMI-FINAL
League Cup:SEMI-FINAL

2020/21:

Notable Acquisitions: Edinson Cavani - Donny van de Beek - Alex Telles - Amad Diallo - Facundo Pellistri - Odion Ighalo (loan).

Notable Departures: Alexis Sanchez - Chris Smalling - Marcos Rojo - Tim Fosu-Mensah - Odion Ighalo - Angel Gomes - Cameron Borthwick-Jackson - Demi Mitchell.

Honours: N/A.

Due to COVID-19 releases went ahead during the latter part of the previous season with the big departure being Angel Gomes who had rejected a new contract. An even bigger departure followed with Alexis Sanchez being given a free transfer and a small payoff to get him out of the huge contract he was on. Odion Ighalo's loan was extended by 6 months and our first signing was Donny van de Beek at a discount price. After yet another sluggish summer of very little transfer activity we started our Premier League season with a disastrous 1-3 loss against Crystal Palace followed by a bizarre 2-3 win against Brighton having won with a penalty after the final whistle had been blown. On deadline day we signed Edinson Cavani, Alex Telles, Facundo Pellistri and Amad Diallo and sold Chris Smalling.  We made more unwanted history by losing the first two home league games for the first time in our club's history, with a horrendous 1-6 loss against Tottenham Hotspur. We bounced back with a 1-4 win against Newcastle before getting a 0-0 bore draw against Chelsea and then a dreadful 0-1 loss against Arsenal. The inconsistency continued with an impressive 1-3 win against Everton, we then got a nervy 1-0 win against West Brom, followed by a 2-3 win against Southampton and a 1-3 win against West Ham United, coming from behind in both games. The winning run came to an end with a 0-0 bore draw against Manchester City, before beating Sheffield United 2-3 and then smashing Leeds United 6-2 with Scott McTominay making Premier League history, scoring 2 goals in the opening 3 minutes. The winning run came to an end again with a frustrating 2-2 draw against Leicester City before we got a very late 1-0 win against Wolves and another nervy 2-1 win against Aston Villa, followed by a 0-1 win against Burnley. We sold Tim Fosu-Mensah ahead of our game against Liverpool which ended 0-0. We beat Fulham 1-2 before Odion Ighalo's loan spell at the club expired, then our run of form came to an end with a disgraceful 1-2 loss against Sheffield United, we drew 0-0 against Arsenal, we sold Marcos Rojo and then got our biggest win since defeating Ipswich Town in 1994/95 by beating 9 man Southampton 9-0! Elation quickly turned to frustration once again with this team by throwing away two leads to draw 3-3 against Everton which all but ended any hopes of a title charge, and if there were still hope at that point there certainly wasn't after drawing 1-1 against West Brom. We won 3-1 against Newcastle to end the barren run and then got two back to back 0-0 bore draws against Chelsea and Crystal Palace before getting a shock 0-2 win against Man City. We then beat West Ham 1-0, Brighton 2-1, Tottenham 1-3 and Burnley 3-1. Afterwards it was revealed that the disgusting Glazer family were ringleaders in forming an ill conceived "European Super League" which after a couple of days of intense opposition from all sides was dropped. Ed Woodward immediately resigned. Our winning run ended with a drab 0-0 against Leeds, we then beat Aston Villa 1-3 to secure top 4 and to an end the season we lost 1-2 against Leicester, got a frustrating 2-4 loss against Liverpool, a frustrating 1-1 draw against Fulham and then a 1-2 win against Wolves. In The League Cup we beat Luton Town 0-3 in the 3rd Round and then got the same result against Brighton in the 4th Round. We beat Everton 0-2 in a nervy Quarter-Final and then lost our 4th consecutive Semi-Final, this time against Manchester City again, 0-2. We had a great start in The Champions League with a 1-2 win against PSG followed by an unbelievable 5-0 win against RB Leipzig. The dream start ended with a surprise 2-1 loss against Istanbul Basaksehir, though we won the return game 4-1. We then lost 1-3 against PSG and 3-2 to RB Leipzig to secure a first round exit in yet another embarrassing chapter in this once great club's history. In The FA Cup we won 1-0 against Watford in the 3rd Round, in the 4th Round we beat Liverpool 3-2 and then beat West Ham 1-0 in the 5th Round before losing 3-1 against Leicester City in the Quarter-Final. In The Europa League we finally got a win against Spanish opposition with a 0-4 first leg win against Real Sociedad, we then saw the job through with a 0-0 in the second leg. United hired their first football director by promoting John Murtough to the role and also promoted Darren Fletcher to the role of technical director ahead of the Round of 16 match against AC Milan, where we drew the first leg 1-1 after a terrible performance. We scraped through after winning the second leg 0-1 and then in the Quarter-Final beat Granada 0-2 and 2-0. In the Semi-Final we made history by being the only team to score 6 goals in a European semi since Real Madrid in 1964 after we beat AS Roma 6-2 after a stunning second half comeback. We saw the job through after a sloppy 3-2 loss in the return leg, winning 8-5 on aggregate. We then bottled the final against a bang average Villarreal side, like in 1999 it was on Matt Busby's birthday, but there was no such inspiration this time, drawing 1-1 and then losing 10-11 on penalties, to make it 4 years without a trophy to continue the mediocre run where I honestly can't see where the next trophy is coming from.

UEFA Champions League: 1st ROUND
Premier League: 2nd
UEFA Europa League: FINAL
FA Cup: QUARTER-FINAL
League Cup: SEMI-FINAL

2021/22:

Notable Acquisitions: Cristiano Ronaldo - Jadon Sancho - Raphael Varane - Tom Heaton - Ralf Rangnick.

Notable Departures: Ole Solskjaer - Michael Carrick - Daniel James - Sergio Romero - Joel Pereira.

Honours: N/A.

We started the summer with the departures of Sergio Romero and Joel Pereira. The first signing was Tom Heaton, we followed that up by finally appointing a set piece specialist called Eric Ramsay, who we poached from Chelsea. Then we FINALLY signed Jadon Sancho! We unveiled Raphael Varane on the pitch ahead of starting the Premier League season smashing Leeds United 5-1, where Pogba made history by getting 4 assists in the opening game. We were quickly back to the same old though with a poor 1-1 away draw to Southampton and played equally as bad the next game against Wolves, but snuck a 0-1 win. On deadline day we sold Daniel James for good money, and broke the internet by announcing the return of Cristiano Ronaldo! On Ronaldo's second debut he scored 2 goals in a 4-1 win against Newcastle United. We won again by beating West Ham 1-2 away with a late Lingard goal and a rare injury time penalty save by De Gea, then the good start to the league season ended with a poor 0-1 loss to Aston Villa. The poor form continued with a 1-1 draw against Everton, the club then announced that they had appointed their first ever data analyst, to improve recruitment. We resumed with a shocking 4-2 loss against Leicester City and then an even more shocking 0-5 loss against Liverpool before beating Tottenham 0-3. Normal business was resumed with a poor 0-2 loss against Man City followed by a truly shocking 4-1 loss to Watford which finally cost Ole Solskjaer his job. Carrick oversaw his second game as interim where we got a hard fought 1-1 draw against Chelsea and then ended his interim reign with a 3-2 win against Arsenal before immediately leaving the club with Ralf Rangnick taking over. Rangnick started with 1-0 wins against Crystal Palace and Norwich City, Ewan Sharp joined his coaching staff and the departure of Kieran McKenna was announced as well as Richard Arnold becoming the new CEO before we got a frustrating 1-1 draw against Newcastle. We got back to winning ways with a 3-1 win against Burnley before returning to the usual crap with a 0-1 loss to Wolves and then drawing 2-2 away to Aston Villa having been 0-2 up, we then beat Brentford 1-3 and West Ham 1-0. Normal service resumed with 1-1 draws against Burnley and Southampton before labouring to a 2-0 win against Brighton. We then thrashed Leeds 2-4, before drawing 0-0 to lowly Watford and then getting hammered 4-1 by Manchester City. We then beat Tottenham 3-2, drew 1-1 against Leicester, lost 1-0 to lowly Everton and beat lowly Norwich 3-2. We got humiliated 4-0 against Liverpool, Erik Ten Hag was then announced as the next manager before we lost 3-1 against Arsenal and then drew 1-1 against Chelsea. Matt Judge thankfully resigned from his role as chief negotiator in what was another part of a club shake up before we beat Brentford 3-0, then the season ended with a 4-0 loss to Brighton and a 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace to round off a miserable year. We started off our Champions League campaign with a shocking 2-1 loss away to Young Boys, we were equally as poor against Villarreal but managed a 95th minute goal to win 2-1 and also did it the hard way to come from 0-2 down to beat Atalanta 3-2. We were once again poor but managed a 2-2 draw away to Atalanta with another last minute Ronaldo goal and then in Michael Carrick's first game as interim we sealed top spot with a 0-2 win against Villarreal. We finished the group stage with a 1-1 draw against Young Boys before Chris Armas and Sascha Lense were added to Rangnick's team. In the 2nd Round we drew 1-1 away to Atletico Madrid and then lost 0-1 in the return leg to cement 5 years without silverware. We were straight out of the League Cup with a pathetic 0-1 loss against West Ham United. In the FA Cup we edged past Aston Villa, 1-0, in the 3rd Round and then went out at home to Middlesbrough in the 4th Round after losing yet another penalty shoot out in yet another low for this club.

UEFA Champions League: 2nd Round
Premier League: 6th
FA Cup: 4th Round
League Cup: 3rd Round

2022/23:

Notable Acquisitions: Erik Ten Hag - Casemiro - Antony - Lisandro Martinez - Christian Eriksen - Tyrell Malacia - Martin Dupravka (loan).

Notable Departures: Paul Pogba - Jesse Lingard - Juan Mata - Edinson Cavani - Nemanja Matic - Andreas Pereira - James Garner - Tahith Chong - Lee Grant - Ralf Rangnick.

Honours: N/A

Erik Ten Hag started things off by bringing in Mitchell van der Gaag plus bringing back Steve McClaren as his assistants. He also added Benni McCarthy and Kevin Keij to his coaching staff, as well as Tom Huddlestone and David Hughes for the U21. The club also appointed Andy O'Boyle as the deputy football director to assist John Murtough. Ralf Rangnick's consultancy role was cancelled after a disastrous time in charge as interim manager, all of his coaching staff were also released. Then Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata, Edinson Cavani, Nemanja Matic and Lee Grant all departed on free transfers. Andreas Pereira was sold. Our first signing was Tyrell Malacia followed by Christian Eriksen on a free and then Lisandro Martinez. We started the Premier League with a 1-2 loss to Brighton and then a 4-0 loss to Brentford. The signing of Casemiro was announced before getting a brilliant 2-1 win against Liverpool, followed up by a 0-1 win against Southampton. We signed Antony, loaned Martin Dupravka and sold James Garner and Tahith Chong before getting another win by beating Leicester 0-1 and then Arsenal 3-1. The winning run came to an end with an embarrassing 6-3 loss to Man City, before we beat Everton 1-2. In the Europa League we lost our first game 0-1 to Real Sociedad, thanks to one of the worst VAR decisions I have ever seen. We won the second game 0-2 against Sheriff Tiraspol and the third game 2-3 against Omonia.

Premier League:
UEFA Europa League:
FA Cup:
League Cup:

CONCLUSION:

The above are obviously the trophies we've gained and some of our records and statistics, United stand as one of the most successful clubs of all time, as well as one of the wealthiest (currently 2nd highest grossing just behind Real Madrid; although that tends to alter each year). We have one of the best stadiums in the world which is packed out every week, it holds over 76,000 people. We're one of, if not the most supported team in the world with 2012 figures allegedly showing 659 million fans worldwide (up from 330 million in 2007 - though this has mostly been ridiculed) and we can also boast to have the longest serving players in all of Europe with an average stay of 5.71 years. Going to Old Trafford is the greatest buzz you can get, it has to be seen to be believed, especially with the way we play, although there are times when formations change, the club have always prided themselves on attacking 4-4-2 football. As well as all of that we have always had big rivalries with Manchester City, Liverpool, Leeds United, and most recently Arsenal and Chelsea. Manchester United is of course currently under the ownership of the Glazer family (since May 2005, after I sold my shares). While I'm not happy about that I appreciate that they must be given a chance because getting on their backs ain't going to help the team or the club (edit: 5 years later - they were given that chance and failed!). Lots of local fans left in protest and started "FC United of Manchester". What does this mean for us? I will wait and see, all I know is that our future looks uncertain.

And on a lighter note, here's a bit of fun to wrap things up (I was most like Denis Law):