In September 2009, after a pulsating 96
minutes that had witnessed United beating
their neighbours Manchester City 4-3 in
a classic Premier League fixture at Old
Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson hailed it as the
“best derby of all time”.
For the previous two decades United had
been the dominant force in the city, but,
after being bought by wealthy new owners,
City believed they were finally ready to
topple them.
In the build-up Ferguson and the City
manager Mark Hughes traded hostile words,
with both men keenly aware of what was at
stake in this game.
United took the lead after two minutes
through Wayne Rooney before Gareth Barry
quickly equalised. In the second half, Darren
Fletcher put United back in front, only for
Craig Bellamy to draw City level again.United thought they had won it when
Fletcher scored his second goal with ten
minutes remaining, but Bellamy capitalised
on a mistake by Rio Ferdinand to make it 3-3
in the 90th minute to secure what City
thought was a valuable point.
But in the sixth minute of added time
Michael Owen received a pass from Ryan
Giggs in front of the Stretford End and poked
the ball past Shay Given to win it for United.
“It all happened in a spilt second,” Owen
recalled. “The target was tiny. The odds were
stacked against me. The first touch was bob-
on. I hit it, a straight prod with my right foot
because that was all I could do, [I] thought,
that’s in... And then Old Trafford exploded.”
“In the moments after the game, there
was a feeling of joy. I’d scored an iconic goal.
I knew that it was a moment I’d always be
remembered for.” ImagesGetty ImagesOWEN QUIETENS THE
NOISY NEIGHBOURS
United remained the leading team in Manchester
after a dramatic last-gasp derby win over City
With the summer signings of Victor Lindelöf, Nemanja Matić and
Romelu Lukaku for a combined £145 million, plus Alexis Sánchez,
who arrived from Arsenal in the January, United enjoyed a better
season in 2017–18, lifting themselves up to second behind a
rampant Manchester City. A gap of 19 points between the two sides
showed there was never a serious title race, so United’s greatest
pleasure was a 3-2 comeback win over City at the Etihad Stadium in
April to stop them winning the title in front of them.
In the summer of 2018, Mourinho believed he needed more
than just the signings of Fred and Diogo Dalot to launch a title
challenge and was disappointed not to also add a new central
defender to the ranks.
Any momentum from the previous season was frittered away
as United lost five of their first 17 league games, and with United
languishing in sixth, Mourinho was sacked after a 3-1 defeat to
Liverpool at Anfield in December 2018. He would later admit that
at this point he had deserved to lose his job.
United’s first choice to replace Mourinho was the Tottenham
Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino, but knowing they could not
lure him from North London halfway through the season, the club
brought in their former player Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on an interim
basis until the end of the season. The appointment was something
of a surprise, for Solskjaer appeared not to have enough experience
for the role, having only managed Molde in his native Norway –
ranked as the 21st best league in Europe – and Cardiff City, who were
relegated from the Premier League under him in 2014.
However, the arrival of a club legend would breathe new life into
the United squad, who went on a run of 14 wins from 17 games,
including a dramatic 3-2 aggregate win over Paris Saint-Germain in
the Champions League round of 16.
A giddy United board prematurely made Solskjaer their
permanent manager with a three-year contract in March 2019 and
then watched in horror as United’s form slumped with four defeats
from their final seven league games.
United began the following season with a stirring opening day
4-0 win over Chelsea, but by March 2020, when the Premier League
shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, United had lost a total
of eight league games. After a three-month break United returned as
a new team, however, going unbeaten for the final nine league
games of the season to finish third and reach the semi-finals of both
the Europa League and FA Cup.
Playing in empty stadiums as the pandemic continued to grip the
world, United were 15th after six games of the 2020–21 season,
which included a sobering 6-1 defeat to José Mourinho’s Tottenham
Hotspur at Old Trafford. They were also knocked out of the
Champions League at the group stage.
Solskjaer was able to engineer an impressive revival, winning ten
times in 13 games to reach the top of the table by January 2021, the
first time they had been there since 2013. But United immediately
got a bad dose of vertigo and were overtaken by Manchester City,
who finished 12 points ahead of them.
The chance for Solskjaer to win his first trophy as United manager
was spurned when his side lost the Europa League final to Villarreal
in a penalty shoot-out in Gdańsk after the game had finished 1-1
after extra-time.
This run to the final and their runners-up finish in the league,
aligned with the summer signings of Jadon Sancho and Raphaël
Varane, and the return of Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer, produced
genuine excitement that United were finally ready to launch
a sustained title challenge.
Solskjaer singularly failed to inspire the most talented squad
United had boasted for at least a decade, and after a run of five
defeats in seven league games – including an appalling 5-0 defeat to
Liverpool at Old Trafford and a 4-1 capitulation to relegation-
threatened Watford – he was sacked in November.
The United goalkeeper David de Gea described the defeat to
Watford as “embarrassing” and “another nightmare”, and in
a damning indictment of Solskjaer admitted, “We don’t know
what to do with the ball, we are conceding a lot of goals.”
For the second time in three years, United found themselves
stranded in mid-season with no hope of luring away their preferred
candidate for new full-time manager, and so they had to make do
with another interim, the highly experienced German coach Ralf
Rangnick. At the time of writing United’s struggling interim looks set
to be replaced in the summer of 2022 by either Mauricio Pochettino
of PSG or Ajax’s Erik ten Hag. Whoever takes the reins will have a
huge rebuilding project on their hands.Left Phil Jones
and Sir Alex
Ferguson react
to hearing
the news
Manchester City
have scored
a late winner
to steal the
2012 title away
from them
Below Ole
Gunnar Solskjaer
speaks to Marcus
Rashford after
a 4-2 defeat to
Leicester City in
October 2021THE END
OF AN ERAFourFourTwo.com The Story of Man Utd 117