2008-2009, Manchester United season

The 2008-2009 season brought four trophies, including a third successive Premiership title. Manchester United also reached the final of the UEFA Champions League for the second season running.

Dimitar Berbatov was added to the squad at the start of the season. He arrived from Tottenham Hotspur just before the close of the summer transfer window for £30m. Shortly afterwards, injury deprived the squad of Owen Hargreaves. Hargreaves had only made two starts when operations on both knees ended his season. Cristiano Ronaldo again scored most of the goals, in what turned out to be his final year with Manchester United.

The main determinant of Premiership success was a fourteen-match, record-breaking run between November and February, during which no league goals were conceded. van der Sar (then thirty-eight) was the goalkeeper in each of the fourteen matches. Many thought the attack not as fluent as during the previous year but, throughout the season, the defence was superb. The heaviest defeat was inflicted by Liverpool. Local rivalry was sustained by Liverpool winning both league matches against Manchester United and finishing second to them in the Premiership. At the same time, Manchester United’s Premiership success meant they and Liverpool had both won eighteen league titles since their establishment. The relationship between the respective managers (Ferguson and Benitez) was rather tetchy in 2008-2009.

The season brought five cup competitions. Success in the 2007-2008 UEFA Champions League meant appearances in both the European Super Cup (which was lost in August to Zenit St Petersburg) and the FIFA Club World Cup (which was won in December in Japan). Despite fielding second-string sides in the Carling Cup, Manchester United reached the final at Wembley in March. A goal-less draw against Tottenham Hotspur was followed by victory on penalties. In the FA Cup, Manchester United reached the semi-finals, where they were drawn against Everton. The demands of the Premiership and the UEFA Champions League led to the fielding of a very youthful side. Again, a goal-less draw was followed by penalties. This time Manchester United wasn't successful.

In the UEFA Champions League, the thirteen-match unbeaten run of 2007-2008 was extended to twenty-five matches. Victories over Aalborg, Celtic, Inter Milan, Porto and Arsenal took Manchester United to the final. In the final in Rome there was no repeat success. The team was comprehensively outplayed by Barcelona and lost 2-0.

Following the treble success of 1998-1999, there was talk in 2008-2009 of a 'quintuple'. By the middle of April, the FIFA Club World Cup and the Carling Cup had been won, the team was leading the Premiership and was in the semi-finals of both FA Cup and UEFA Champions League. In the end there was no 'quintuple'. If there had been, it would have been strange to those followers who didn't feel the team actually played that well in 2008-2009. To some, accommodating Berbatov unsettled the attack and squad rotation unsettled the midfield.

During the summer of 2009, Manchester United accepted from Real Madrid a world-record bid of £80m for Cristiano Ronaldo. Carlos Tevez also left the club. He was signed by Manchester United’s now wealthy neighbours, Manchester City. (During the season, Manchester City was bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group from the United Arab Emirates.)