Ferguson’s current crop of forwards has been repeatedly compared to the golden age of 1999, but was the quartet United had in 2009 the best of all?
Manchester United’s strikers have already amassed plenty of goals and assists between them this season, with the bulk of their returns coming from the prolific paring of Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie.
The quartet is completed by the clinical super sub Javier Hernandez, and England youngster Danny Welbeck. Clearly there is a lot of quality in United’s front line this season, so much so that they have been compared to the treble winning four of Sheringham, Yorke, Cole and Solskjaer.
However there is another set of strikers who have a claim to be United’s best of the Premier League era. In 2008-09 United waltzed to the league title on the back of perhaps the most naturally talented set of strikers there has been in the Premiership.
In the season before Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez had run riot for United, with the Portuguese forward producing a truly ridiculous 43 goal haul in all competitions. Clearly Ferguson decided he didn’t have enough going forward with those three, so in the summer he spent £30.75 million to sign Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur.
Unlike with this season and 1999, there was no attempt to balance the strike force. There was no up and coming youngster or super sub, Ferguson simply assembled four of the best players in the world. This lack of balance sometimes hindered the side, but there’s no doubt that just in terms of pure talent, these four have to be the best United have had.
In 2008-9 United won both the Premiership and the League Cup, and reached the final of the Champions League. Their four forwards contributed 74 goals and 35 assists between them. They might not have won as much as the 1999 side did, or the 2013 side still might do, but they had more individual talent than both those sides.
Look at the individual records of the players. Three of the 2008-9 strikers were Premier League top scorer during one of their seasons at United, the fourth – Wayne Rooney – is the 8th top scorer of all time in the Premiership. Cristiano Ronaldo is a phenomenon, and the best player out of any of the three quartets.
These four players have shown themselves to be spiky, arrogant individuals at times in their careers, with Tevez now particularly reviled at Old Trafford after his switch to Manchester City. But for one season, United had four of the best strikers in the world playing at their club at the same time, and this is a fair shout for the most exciting quartet they have had in the Premier League.
image: © Gordon Flood
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