Sir Bobby Charlton is deservedly a national hero. It is easy to forget how major a star he was in his day, and difficult to fathom just how huge he would be if playing nowadays.
But Sir Bobby Charlton is also the official flag-waver-in-chief for Manchester United and, not for the first time, his interpretation of the facts is completely delusional.
Sir Bobby has hit out at the teams he sees as buying their way to the title, and portrayed United as a side that has based its success on carefully and lovingly developed talent. Which is a lie.
Was it ever really true? Sir Bobby can only hope to get away with saying it because of the team that shot to the title in 1996 with Beckham, Butt, Giggs, Scholes and Gary Neville as major parts. But it should not be forgotten that British transfer records were previously spent on Roy Keane and Andy Cole and that they, Dennis Irwin, Gary Pallister, Peter Schmeichel and, of course, Eric Cantona were the experienced spine of that side, and one that United had nothing to do with developing.
Since that golden generation, the actual throughput of top talent from the fabled United academy has been abysmal. Look at the current squad and you can only count Darren Fletcher as someone who truly belongs. The others are either in the twilight of their careers, Giggs and Scholes, or not up to standard, Brown, O’Shea, Gibson and Evans.
Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley may well make a breakthrough soon, but the truth is that United have based their continued competitiveness on spending ludicrous amounts on cash.
With transfer fees the way they are nowadays, the fees paid for Dwight Yorke (£12.5m), Jaap Stam (£10m) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (£19m) may seem ‘cheap’ but they were huge amounts for their day while there will almost certainly never be a bigger waste of money than the £28m spent on Juan Sebastian Veron.
Of the current squad, Rio Ferdinand cost £29m almost a decade ago, Anderson and Nani cost a combined £30m, Owen Hargreaves cost £17, Michael Carrick over £15m, Wayne Rooney £25m, Antonio Valencia £16m, Chris Smalling £10m, Bebe, a player plucked from the obscurity of Portugal’s lower leagues, was a snip at £7m
United may have picked up some bargains in Edwin van der Sar, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic and Ronaldo but, by and large, they have paid top dollar for their players.
And why not? They have remained the team to beat because of it. Is it any wonder Man City and Chelsea are trying to replicate what United have done for so long?
For all manner of reasons, Sir Bobby is right to hit out and the insane spending going on, but for his words to have a ring of truth to them he should raise his sights at his employers as well as their foes. To suggest United are any different is pure hypocrisy.
