Quote Originally Posted by IainR View Post
Ii think you mis-remember 99.. before xmas we were poor.. off the lead and schmeichel was awful, so bad Fergie sent him away for a holiday as he thought he was shot.. he came back refreshed and we kicked on.. we did get a winning run going then and big game after big game, but we were lucky with the league as nobody took the league by the horns we could gain back the ground and win with a very low final points total.. IIRC..

Had it been last season we'd have been way out the back and dead by xmas.. it was a poor league then.
It wasn't a particularly low points total at the time, we got 78 pts but we won the league with 75pts in 96/97 and we were rarely outside the top 2 all season. Arsenal and then Chelsea took the number of points needed to win the title to a new level (Chelsea hold the record with 95) but it wasn't unusual for 80 points to win the title.

Whilst we were fairly poor, by United's standards, before Christmas (despite losing only 3 times) we were unstoppable in the new year and as you say, we were winning big game after big game....

...which confirms my point about big games bringing the best out of some teams.