Mr Abramovich Goes to Manchester
POD: Roman Abramovich buys Manchester United instead of Chelsea after the 2002-2003 Football Season*
2003-2004: Manchester United (England) (Defeating Monaco 3-0)
(1)
2004-2005: Manchester United (England) (Defeating AC Milan 5-4)
(2)
2005-2006: Arsenal (England) (Defeating Manchester United 4-3) (3)
2006-2007: Manchester United (England) (Defeating AC Milan 4-2) (4)
2007-2008: Manchester United (England) (Defeating Liverpool 4-3) (5)
(1) Manchester United go on a impressive spending spree (They end up spending around £200-250 million new players) which not only allows them to win the Premier League (With 92 points, only 2 above Arsenal and thus resulting in a nail-biting climax) but also win the FA Cup (As they did in OTL), reach the Semi-Finals of the League Cup (Beating Arsenal along the way) and of course win the Champions League (Overcoming Mourinho's Porto team in a closely fought match in the R16, a comfortable victory against Lyon in the QF, a respectible victory against Deportivo de La Coruña in the SF and a strong performance against Monaco in the Final.
This meant that Manchester United became the first English/British Team and European Team to win the Continential Treble for the 2nd time* and thus secured their place in European Football History. More specfically they had won their 16th English First Division/Premier League Title, their 12th FA Cup and their 3rd European Cup/Champions League Title (In other words they have the highest number of FA Cups, the second highest number of English First Division/Premier League Titles and the second highest number of European Cup/Champions League Title held by an English Club).
Meanwhile Chelsea (who where forced to sell most of their best players due to financial issues) ended up midtable after dangerously coming close to the relagation zone at times while Arsenal finished second (All 38 of their games had their OTL results, including the ones against Manchester United) after a hard fought (and unbeaten) run for the title, Liverpool finished a distant 3rd while Newcastle finished (not far behind points wise) in 4th place
(2) Manchester United somewhat reduced their transfer spending compared to last season, but it was still an impressive £150-200 Million (Which included strikers such as Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba, wingers such as Arjen Robben, goalkeepers such as Petr Čech and defenders such as Gerard Piqué, Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira. All of wholm would pay big parts in United teams in future seasons).
The end result of this was not only did they win the same 3 trophies (Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League) they won last season (Thus becoming the both the first English/British Team and the first European Team to win the Treble 3 times), but they also managed to become the first English Team to win the Quadruple (Though winning the League Cup as well) and the Quintuple (Though winning the last ever Intercontinential Cup in December 2004 by Once Calidas 3-0).***
Likewise what made this hard fought campaign so interesting is how exactly they did it, for example in the Premier League they managaged to complete a second unbeaten season in a row (While achiving a record points total of 100 points thanks to their 31 victories and 7 draws), while in the FA Cup they managed to defeat Arsenal in the final by 4-0 while and they managed to win the League Cup (for only their second time) after defeating Liverpool 3-2 in a hard fought final. But it was in the Champions League which featured their greatest games thanks to a 6 victories out of the 6 games in the Group Stage, a tough 3-2 victory against Bayen Munich in the R16, a 7-5 victory over Frank Rijkaard's Barcelona in the QF, a hard fought 3-2 SF victory against Liverpool and one of the greatest European Cup/Champions League Finals of all time in the form of a 5-4 victory against AC Milan (Thanks to Drogba's hat trick and Rooney's 2 goals in the second half despite AC Milan scoring 4 goals in the first half).
All this ultimately meant that during this season, Manchester United won their 17th Premier League/First Division Title, their 13th FA Cup, their 4th Champions League Title and their 2nd Intercontinential Cup. In other words they have the highest number of FA Cups, the second highest number of English First Division/Premier League Titles and the joint highest number of European Cup/Champions League Titles held by an English Club. Finally they became the 1st English Football Club to be crowned English, European and World Champions in the same season.
(3) Compared to previous seasons, Manchester United spent very little on transfer spending (Although one important signing was Edwin Van de Sar, who alongside Čech helped provide the goalkeeping skills and talent for future sucessfull seasons), although it was still £80-90 million.
Now considering how sucessful Manchester United had been in the first 2 seasons of the Abramovich-Ferguson had been (even by the high standards of Ferguson) expectations were very high on the club. These expectations where largely met by yet another Premier League Title, another League Cup and other FA Cup (Despite West Ham United fighting to the bitter end in Man United's 4-3 victory against the Hammers). Likewise in addition to another Domesitc Treble they also won the 2nd ever FIFA Club World Cup as well (thus remaining World Champions for the 2nd season in a row) by beating Sao Paulo 2-1, thus achiving what was only their 2nd ever Quadruple.
However unlike last season there where some disappointments in the form of the Champions League, now of course they did excellently well by recent standards; they topped their Group (And also beat Liverpool twice as well), they again defeated Barcelona 2-1 in the R16, won 3-0 against Benfica in the QF and won 2-1 against AC Milan in the SF.
But when they reached the final in the Stade de France, they faced their biggest rivals Arsenal and despite the domestic advantange they now held against its rivals and despite playing well, Arsenal played even better to win the game 4-3 (With Thierry Henry giving the performance of his life in his home city by scoring all of the Gunner's 4 goals in the final). Now some blamed fatigue with Manchester United (winning 12 major titles/cups over 3 seasons does take its toll) but really it was also about how much Arsenal focused so much of their campaign on the Champions League above every other tournement.
You see Arsenal had spent the the last 3 seasons (2002-2003, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005) finishing 2nd behind Man United (while not winning any other cups in the latter 2 seasons) despite finishing unbeaten during one of those seasons (in 2003-2004). This was thanks to the Abramovich's vast investment's into Man United which left the likes of Arsenal fall further and further behind the Red Devil's (which was in turn not help's by Arsenals financial need to build a new stadium, Chelsea still on the slow recovery from financial woes and Liverpool remaining as they are).
Thus with the final season at Highbury approching (which made it more important than ever to win some silverware as a reward for all the effort they would have put in thoughout the various seasons) they made the bold decision to focus most of their efforts on the Champions League (after correctly thinking that by the time the final comes along United would be pretty fatigued) at the expence of both the FA Cup and the League Cup (of which they where knocked out pretty early) and the Premier League (When they just about finished in 4th place, with Liverpool and even Tottenham finishing above them alongside Unied).
Still reguardless of the sacrifices they had to make during this season, it ultimately paid off for them in so many ways, from Henry winning the Champions League in his home city to Arsenal sucessfully defeating their now dominant rivals to the club finally winning the Champions League for the first time in their history. Still for Manchester United it was not all bad news, they had after all won their 18th Premier League/First Division Title, their 14th FA Cup, their 3rd Club World Cup/Intercontinential Cup and their 3rd League Cup. This meant they now held the joint record for the most Premier League/First Division Titles (as well as the joint highest number of European Cup/Champions League Titles held by an English Club) with their bitter rivals Liverpool.
(4) After assessing their performances last season, Manchester United decided to make a series of strategic transfer moves in areas which they felt needed improvement (For layers such as Michael Carrick and Ashley Cole of which the move the latter caused outrange among Arsenal fans) totalling £100-150 million. Which ultimately paid off with with a performance which almost surpassed the legendary 2004-2005 season (The only thing that was missing was a Club World Cup, which they failed to reach thanks to their defeat by Arsenal in last seasons Champions League Final) with resulted in a 4th Treble and a 3rd Quadruple in a row (While also winning their 4th Continental Treble) thanks to winning the Premier League (With a record points total of 104 points thanks to 33 wins and 5 draws), winning the FA Cup (for a 4th time in a row after winning 4-1 against Tottenham Hotspur), winning the League Cup (for a 3rd time in a row after beating Arsenal 3-1) and of course winning the Champions against their now familiar (European) rivals of AC Milan in a somewhat eaiser victory than what was the case in Istanbul in 2005.
Still despite this, they still had a pretty interesting run in this seasons Champions League, which after their usual dominance in their Group (Which included winning once and drawing once against Barcelona) included winning 5-2 against Porto in the R16, winning 4-1 against Valancia in the QF, winning 3-0 against Liverpool in yet another European Derby in the SF before facing another of their rivals (AC Milan) in Athens.
Likewise beyond all this, what made this season particually special is that (Beyond winning their 15th FA Cup and their 4th League Cup) they finally managed to surpass Liverpool's long standing records when it comes to the most Premier League/First Division Titles (After Manchester United managed to win their 19th title this season) and the highest number of European Cup/Champions League Titles held by an English Club (After Manchester United won their 5th title this season). Thus Fergie finally achived his long held goal to knock "Liverpool off their perch".
(5) After building on what they had had done in previous seasons of the Abramovich-Ferguson era; Manchester United achevied their greatest ever season (at that moment in time anyway) by not only winning another Domestic Treble (Their 4th in a row), but had also won yet another Champions League and their 2nd Club World Cup (They had won the tournment after defeating Boca Juniors 5-1 in the Final). Thus achiving their 5th Treble and 4th Quadruple in a row (and of course their 5th Continential Treble) as well as what is was only their 2nd ever Quintuple.
But again behind all those titles and cups, what made this season particulary interesting is how exactly they did all that. For example in the Premier League they ended up having yet another record breaking unbeaten season (34 wins, 4 draws, 106 points and 24 points ahead of 2nd place Arsenal). In fact such was their dominance (Manchester United had won 6 titles in a row by the end of this season while also enjoying a 94 game unbeaten run to boot) that there where growing concerns about how their recent dominance during the Abramovich-Ferguson era could impact on the long term future of the league itself (especially over TV revenues, both over how much Man United where getting and possible reduced revenues from future TV Rights Deals).
Likewise in the Domesitc Cups the same dominance was also there, this was particually reflected in both the League Cup (Which Man United won it by defeating Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 in the final) and the FA Cup Final (Which Man United won it by defeating Portsmouth 6-0 in the final) even though Manchester United deployed their 2nd or even 3rd XI's thoughout both tournements (including the finals).
Thus it was in the Champions League more then anywhere else that Manchester United faced their biggest challenge of the season. Not in the Group's Stages (Where Man United as usual Topped their Group and won all 6 of their Group Stage Matches) though, not in the R16 (Where they beat Lyon 5-0), nor in the QF (Where they beat Roma 4-0) and not even (to a great extent) in the SF as well (Where they beat Barcelona 2-1, although it was a hard fought victory to say the least).
No the biggest challenge of the season was facing Liverpool in the Final (Which was the first Derby Fixture to take place in a European Final, which in combination of the fact the game was hosted in Moscow meant that the game itself became known as the "Red Final") and it resulted in one of the greatest Champions League Finals of all times (perhaps even more so then in 2005). This was in combination of great performances on the pitch and the amazing atmosphere (both in and around the stadium that Moscow night) and was further helped by the bitter rivalry between the 2 clubs as well as Liverpools determination to reclaim the European Cup/Champions League Title record they recently lost to Man United.
Likewise the match itself was also known for the record amounts of Yellow and Red Cards thoughout the match (was was reflected by the frequent confrontations between rival fans in and around Moscow during over previous days), Droba's goal in the first half, Torres's Hat Trick and United's fightback in both the second half and extra time (which climaxed with Rooney scoring the winning goal). In the end though, Manchester United fought a hard earned victory in Moscow that night and for Ferguson, he became the first British Manager to win 5 Champions Leagues.
The end result of all that in this impressive season was that Manchester United won their 20th Premier League/First Division Title (Highest of any English Club), their 16th FA Cup (Highest of any English Club), their 5th League Cup (2nd Highest of any English Club), their 6th European Cup/Champions League Title (Highest of any English Club) and their 4th Club World Cup/Intercontinential Cup (Highest of any English Club).
*A POD which I earlier explored in this thread (
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...vich-bought-manchester-united-in-2003.355781/)
**League Title, Challenge Cup (Either the main one or the only one) and Champions League
***If one is to exclude Super Cups (Such as the Charity Sheld and UEFA Super Cups, but not the Intercontinential Cup) then the ATL 2004-2005 Manchester United Team would have become the first football club in UEFA to achive both the Quadruple and Quintuple (Involving the Champions League that is) since the Lisbon Lions Celtic team of 1967.