There is Treble talk around March most seasons if Liverpool, Chelsea or Manchester City are going well and I’ve always thought, ‘Nah, I don’t really want them to do it’.
But with this City team, you almost felt it was inevitable because they’re that good. In all honesty, it’s a pleasure for our ‘99 team to be ranked alongside them as well as vice-versa because they’re phenomenal.
It doesn’t reduce our achievement whatsoever. Only special teams can do it. I watched the game last night and heard Pep Guardiola say how incredibly difficult it is to win the Treble. What we did was brilliant and the same goes for City this year.
Would our United have beaten Pep’s team? We’ll never know of course and there is so little to choose between us, it might have depended on the referee.
We could do a bit of everything and Sir Alex Ferguson was among the first to embrace the squad system with four strikers he could call upon at different times. Some of the challenges considered fair 20 years ago might be penalised now.
On the flip side, City play with great flair, and those players are protected by the officials.
I feel we had a few more close calls in ‘99 than City have done. Our games against Arsenal and Juventus in the cups were epics that swung one way and the other whereas City steamrollered Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reach the Champions League final.
We had a strong group so you wouldn’t have written us off against anyone — and by the way the same goes for the Liverpool team of the 1980s I grew up with. They also have to be in the conversation of Greatest Ever.
I’d love to have played for Guardiola. Even now I’d like to be a fly on the wall and hear how he goes about his work. He’s taken City to the next level and won’t want to stop there.
He is due a rest now, deservedly so, but come three weeks’ time, he’ll be planning again. I love listening to his ideas.
