Manchester United: Alex Ferguson's 7 Great Old Trafford Signings

Sir Alex Ferguson has so far this summer spent over £50 million on Ashley Young, David de Gea and Phil Jones. The talents of all three suggest they will make themselves highly significant features of a squad being re-vamped with new Champions League glory, especially, in mind.

They are following in a long, long line of new arrivals as part of the manager’s constant quest for success. Some of his signings over the years, almost inevitably, have been flops. Nobody can get it right all the time and there have been quite a few who have flopped miserably, even disastrously.

But on other occasions, Ferguson has brought in players that have become icons, inspirational figures who have changed the face of United sides single-handedly. Here are seven examples of near-perfect purchase:

Eric Cantona

The 1990 FA Cup victory may well have saved Sir Alex Ferguson’s career but it was Eric Cantona that made it. Indeed, had the manager not taken in November 1992  what was very much a gamble on a player who had a reputation for being a maverick talent, it is entirely possible he would have come under more serious pressure.

Cantona changed everything at a United side that was struggling when he arrived from Leeds. He brought flair, he brought genius, he inspired young players like David Beckham and then Ryan Giggs to express themselves.

He remains “Dieu” at Old Trafford, and little wonder. He found his home at the Theatre of Dreams. He was pretty good at kung-fu, too.

Wayne Rooney

Arsene Wenger stated after the barrel-chested kid from Croxteth, Liverpool, had scored a last-minute wonder-goal for Everton against his side in October 2002 that “everybody knew” he was the most talented youngster of his generation.

How right he was.

Buying him was a no-brainer for Ferguson, even if the £25.6 million fee was a record price for a teenager. He is now the third-highest paid player in the world and after last season’s want-away hiatus, recently re-committed himself to the cause and is most certainly the iconic figure of Old Trafford.

Peter Schmeichel

Ferguson called him “the bargain of the century” and who’s arguing? He cost just £530,000 when he arrived from Denmark in 1991 (consider what David de Gea has just cost) and easily earned his nickname of the Great Dane.

Famous for his starfish saves, Schmeichel was a giant in more ways than one. His penalty save in an FA Cup semi final replay against Arsenal in 1999, as United went for that amazing treble, is one of the finer moments of his career, but it was his contemptuous, arrogant attitude that made him such a fabulous goalkeeper.

Edwin Van Der Sar

Schmeichel’s departure in 1999 after the miracle of Barcelona and the treble that astonishing Champions League defeat of Bayern Munich caused a void that for so long, created so much anguish around Old Trafford as a whole succession of goalkeepers tried and failed to fill it.

Massimo Taibi, Fabien Barthez, Tim Howard…the list is long. Then the Dutchman was bought from Fulham and almost in a heartbeat the problem was solved. Suffice to say that even after he had turned 40, Ferguson still wanted him to stick around for this season.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Ferguson paid £12.4 million for him when he was 18 and not a few people question such an outlay. They don’t any more. United made a profit of £68 million on him when he left for Real Madrid six years after walking through the Old Trafford doors as a virtual unknown in 2003.

Quite simply, he was, and remains, a phenomenon. His free kicks are astounding, his tricks magical and he likes to score a goal.

In the 2007-08 season, he got 42 of them in 49 appearances for United. He bettered that last season. The 51 goals he scored for Real made him the club’s biggest hitter in a campaign, putting him two past the legendary Ferenc Puskas.

Roy Keane

We know that, in the end, Ferguson banished the Irishman, fed up at his repeated criticisms of training, travel arrangements and some of the members of the team he captained. It was a sad, somewhat unsavoury farewell to his United career for over the previous 11 years he had been a machine.

He arrived from Nottingham Forest for £3.75 million and at his peak was worth more than 10 times that, even in old money. Nobody who saw him play can ever forget that dark-eye determination.The ultimate box-to-box player of his generation.

Steve Bruce

There have been other, more expensive, more artistic central defenders introduced to Old Trafford by Ferguson—Rio Ferdinand, Gary Pallister and perhaps Chris Smalling. There has never been anyone harder than Bruce.

He cost £800,000 from Norwich City in 1987 and while he was never a man mountain he did become a mountain of a man, his work in the opposition box—in the 1990-91 season alone he scored 19 goals—was sometimes as important as the way he gave blood and broken noses to the cause at his own end.