1997 - 98 Cantona Retires and its Side effects
The first bomb to explod is the shock retirement of captain Eric Cantona. At 31, he felt enough is enough, he calls it a day and move on to the movie industry. Juninho, Batigol, Baggio, Del Piero were among the names mentioned to replace the French forward. None of these came except Teddy Sheringham from Spurs.
Sheringham, as a replacement seems strange. The player is into his 30s and the rest mentioned above are in their 20's. Only time will tell if Sheringham is a useful addition.
The season started with United winning the Charity Shield. Subsequence matches saw United took pole position in the league, with United winning 7-1 against Barnsley, 6-1 against Sheff Wed. United peaked too fast and they are wearing out. Keane injured for the rest of the season plus injuries to key players was a big price to pay, the turning point came when United lost 3-2 to Conventry. Unthinkable result as the last 5 minutes of the game saw 2 goal scored, when United was leading 2-1. Defeats against Southampton away(1-0), Sheff Wed away (2-0), Arsenal (1-0) at home , drawn game with Bolton, Newcastle and Liverpool allow 4th placed Arsenal, who were unbeaten since Christmas till last game of the season and also with games in hand to overtake United by a point, a point they held out to the last day of the season.
Arsenal not only won the League that Season, they took the FA Cup as well to equal United's record of two Doubles.
With Cantona gone, Arsenal proved to everyone that they are ready to replace United as the Best Team In UK. But they were wrong.... As for Sheringham, he proved that he is still around for years to come. He did not expect that in 1999, he is a key player in .....