1999-2000, Manchester United season

Manchester United won the Premiership again in the 1999-2000 season. It was their sixth title in eight years. They lost only three games and ended with a record number of points (ninety-one).

The team was largely unchanged from the previous year, except in one notable respect. Peter Schmeichel left the demands of the Premiership to play in Portugal. To many, Schmeichel was the best goalkeeper ever to play for Manchester United, and he proved difficult to replace. Six different goalkeepers were used over the next six seasons. For the 1999-2000 season, Mark Bosnich and Massimo Taibi arrived to join Raimond van der Gouw.

In the Premiership, Manchester United looked comfortable. They won six of their first seven games and all of their last eleven. They won the title with four matches still to play and, in the end, finished eighteen points ahead of Arsenal, who were runners-up. They endured only one major reverse; a 5-0 defeat at Chelsea in October.

Manchester United didn’t participate in the FA Cup in 1999-2000. As winners of the previous season’s UEFA Champions League, they were invited to participate in a FIFA World Club Championship in Brazil in January. The FA wanted them to take part, believing it would help England’s (ultimately failed) bid to host the 2006 World Cup. Being in Brazil in January meant they would miss the fourth round of the FA Cup in England and so it was agreed they should withdraw. It wasn’t a popular decision and Manchester United were accused of being disrespectful to the FA Cup. When they got to Brazil, they didn’t progress beyond the group stage.

In the UEFA Champions League Manchester United reached the quarter-finals, where they were defeated by the eventual winners, Real Madrid. After a goal-less game in Madrid, Manchester United lost 3-2 at Old Trafford.

Roy Keane, Manchester United’s captain, signed a new contract during the season. He also won both the Football Writers’ and the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Players’ Player of the Year awards. He did this despite featuring in one the season’s uglier moments, when he and other Manchester United players chased referee Andy D’Urso around Old Trafford following a contentious decision. There were tensions between Alex Ferguson and David Beckham, after Beckham missed training to look after his family. In the manager’s eyes, Beckham’s life-style was interfering with his football. Alex Ferguson himself announced that he would retire at the end of the 2001-02 season, prompting much speculation about who might succeed him. At the end of the season, Manchester United’s Chief Executive Martin Edwards retired and was replaced by Peter Kenyon.