Sir Alex Ferguson says goodbye to Manchester United after 13th title win
In his 26 years in charge of Manchester United, he’s pretty much done everything he could have achieved several times over. A total of 38 trophies, amounting to nearly three every two seasons, is pretty impressive; but the fact that they’ve won 13 Premier League crowns is even more astonishing. Their latest league win was sealed a few weeks ago.
Although, compared to some of Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams of the past, this season’s squad didn’t look quite so impressive, they did more than enough to secure a title with a few games to spare. A few things went in United’s favour including disharmony at some of their main rivals and a few last-minute escapes in key games, but they still performed better than the rest, hence their title win.
Van delivers
In the summer, Sir Alex made one key signing that would provide them with the edge up front they sorely needed – Robin van Persie. His arrival from Arsenal proved to be a shot in the arm for the Reds, as he helped to score the goals which kept them ahead of the pack in the first half of the season.
It wasn’t just van Persie who performed well for United in this league campaign. Michael Carrick, Rafael da Silva and fast-improving young midfielder Tom Cleverley have all been pivotal to United’s successful attempt to regain the Premier League trophy from local rivals Manchester City. Tightening up in defence later on and the improvement in form of goalkeeper David de Gea also helped.
Toothless rivals
Before the season started, a tight race for the title was expected, with defending champions City expected to come out on top. Fortunately for United fans, they along with Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham all managed to fall significantly short for different reasons. Chelsea and Spurs were affected by having small squads, while Arsenal weren’t ambitious enough with their signings.
City’s failure to give United a proper challenge was down almost entirely to their profligacy up front. Their leading scorer in the league this season is Edin Dzeko, who has only scored 14 times. For a club with ambitions as high as theirs, that stat doesn’t make for particularly good reading, although they’ve had a few injuries to cope with.
On course for victory
Sir Alex’s 13th and last Premier League win was pretty sweet for him, but wasn’t anything like as surprising as when he found out that he’d won his first. Back in May 1993, while on a golf course, Sir Alex was told that his side had won their first league title in 26 years. From that moment on, United had gone on to dominate the English game, with other clubs seldom getting a look-in.