Sir Alex's reign: 1996-2001
Some felt the wheels had come off for United during the 1996/97 season with heavy defeats to Newcastle (0-5) and Southampton (3-6) coming around the same time as the first-ever European home loss to Beskitas.
"What our country's media seem to fail to recognise is that every club, no matter how successful they are, will find themselves in that sort of situation at some stage during a season," said the boss. "For some reason, though, when it happens to United it attracts more coverage."
The Reds rallied and a win at Liverpool helped set up another Premier League title triumph with success being sealed by defeats for the Merseysiders, despite a Michael Owen goal on his debut, and Newcastle while the champions were not in action. There was more European disappointment when Borussia Dortmund won the two-legged Champions League semi-final, even if the 4-0 pummeling of Porto had many predicting glory on the continent for the Reds.
Eric Cantona's shock retirement at the end of the season again had pundits predicting the end of an era and, as had occured in 1995, United finished trophyless when being forced to compete without the talismanic Frenchman.
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