Chip Paper: 1992 Emlyn Hughes
Yolkie Says:
Ever cast your mind back to embarrassingly incorrect predictions by some sections of the media? Whether it was Alan Hansen declaring the class of '92 would achieve naff all, and within 3 years they had won a double and a treble (including a European Cup), or Steven Howard blasting Fergie's tactical naivety for getting a draw in Barcelona before Scholes blasted us to Moscow, we all have our favourite mis-edicts.
Stretford-End.com presents the first in a monthly series from the wonderful, wacky, and warm memories of United in the history of the media.
This first edition looks back on an article published in 1992 from the late Emlyn Hughes. Cracking player, wonderful personality, but couldn't have hit the nail further away from the head with this prediction if he'd tried.
A Flashy Foreigner
EMLYN HUGHES on the last big gamble of United's Alex Ferguson - Daily Mirror, Saturday, November 28, 1992
It will be Oooh Arrgh Cantona
A MASTER STROKE... that's what some people are saying about Manchester United's signing of Eric Cantona.
Me? I say it's a panic buy. One last frantic roll of the dice to see if the Frenchman can hit the jackpot for Alex Ferguson. It could either win him something this season, or cost him his job. Break the bank - or bust him.
And I'll admit when I heard the news I was simply staggered. Cantona looks the business, but in my opinion he's a flashy foreigner. He'll score goals for United... when they are two up. But don't look for him to get in there when it hurts, or to decide a game and be a matchwinner.
Cantona could have won the second leg of Leeds' European Cup tie with Rangers at Elland Road if he had been good enough. But he wasn't and he didn't. I counted a hat-trick of chances squandered before he knocked one in when the game was dead and buried.
United will want Cantona to produce the main meal of Boeuf Bourgignon, not just the appetizer of frogs legs and no filling. It might be all right for a month or two, but what will happen if Alex goes into one of his dressing room rages when things start to go wrong?
There have been allegations against the Frenchman that he shuffles off in a sulk when the flak begins to fly and has been training or even go home for two days. Don't forget he was trouble in France, where he fell foul of their authorities and was nicknamed L'Enfant Terrible. For Fergie to sign a player who looked as if he was being phased out at Elland Road, suggests he pushed the panic button. He failed to get Alan Shearer, who chose Blackburn instead of Old Trafford, then got no joy out of Sheffield Wednesday when he went in for David Hirst. Before that he sold off Mark Robins, who has since helped shoot Norwich to the top. So what he's done represents perhaps the biggest gamble of his career at the club.
I suspect Howard Wilkinson will get the best out of the deal.. the fact he's got his money back is sound business.
I'm always suspicious of crowd pleasers. Cantona had his fan club, and a chant, but it didn't mean he could play. Too often he didn't, when it mattered most to Leeds, like the two away European Cup ties he disappeared from. As Wilkinson said: "I can only play eleven players". What he didn't say was that Cantona was one of them.
Ferguson is becoming desperate in his quest to win the League for United, but his side can't score goals.
I'm certain Cantona is not going to put that problem right. I cannot see him being the man who'll either get goals or start Mark Hughes scoring. Shearer was his man. Should have been, and Fergie is now getting stick from the fans for missing him. He has to expect it, and now he is forced to go clutching at straws. If United win the League it will prove to be the best buy of all... but if they don't...
Cantona is full of flair, he's flash, he gave Leeds something different and helped them win the title. Perhaps that's what has turned Ferguson's head. Perhaps he thinks what he's done one, he can do again.
It will keep his critics quiet on the terraces, and within the club.
But for how long?