5. Paul McGrath

Signed from: St Patrick's Athletic of Dublin (£30,000), April 1982
Debut: 0-0 draw vs Bradford City (League Cup tie), November 10th 1982
League Record: 159 games (+4 as sub), 12 goals
Sold to: Aston Villa (£450,000), August 1989

A player of whom the vast majority of my memories of his playing career are of him in an Aston Villa shirt. Fans slightly older than me have eulogised his genius in a red shirt many times but by 1988, the game was almost up as Fergie looked to sort out the drinking culture that had led to years of relative underachievement.

McGrath was already well into his 20s when he arrived at Old Trafford. The son of a Nigerian father and Irish mother, he had a troubled upbringing: his mother came to London so as to hide her pregnancy from her family, the baby being adopted and later tracked down again by his mother and taken back to Ireland. It wasn't until his early 20s when he began playing football professionally, and after just one season in Irish football, Ron Atkinson brought him to United.

He was a fringe player for his first two seasons, though was considered for a place on the left wing for the 1983 FA Cup final after injuries put paid to Steve Coppell's career. Played in that position in a game against Luton Town, he scored twice in the first half but, according to Atkinson, was otherwise useless out wide. Instead, youngster Alan Davies got the nod.

In 1984/85, with injuries putting Gordon McQueen increasingly out of action, he finally secured a regular first team place. In the FA Cup final that season, he won Man of the Match and a long career at United seemed assured. At that point, he was blessed with a deceptively quick pace but problems lurked beneath the surface. Niggling knee injuries began to get progressively worse and he developed what would become a serious drink problem not helped by having plenty of other players at the club who were always partial to a pint or ten.

When Alex Ferguson arrived in November 1986, he quickly assessed the situation and decided (correctly) the drinking culture at United was a huge factor in our lack of success. Within two years, McGrath was moved on to Aston Villa, causing him to slump in to deep depression. He would go on to attack Fergie in the tabloids but would later admit that if he had been manager, he would never have been so patient as Ferguson had been.

At Villa, he found a sympathetic manager in Graham Taylor, who limited his training to avoid wear on his knackered knees. The policy worked, and McGrath was a key part of the Villa teams that were League Championship runners-up in 1990 and 1993, the latter to United, of course. In 1994, he was part of the squad that beat United 3-1 in the League Cup final, after which his old nemesis Ferguson came up and congratulated him.

A key moment that showcased his world-class quality would come in the 1994 World Cup when Ireland beat Italy 1-0 and McGrath had Roberto Baggio - at that point regarded as one of, if not the, best players in the world - in his back pocket, using his sublime footballing brain to snuff out any problems despite having a set of knees that seemingly never allowed him to move beyond walking pace.

By all accounts, his autobiography is well worth reading, going through his problems with alcoholism and depression in shocking detail as opposed to the usual tedious affair such tomes can be. In a somewhat surreal change of direction, he also recorded an album recently, showing he has a fair enough voice too. You can understand why Villa fans called him "God" - the ambivalent tag below is simply because, as I said at the top, barely any of my memories of him are in a red shirt. I'm fully aware Reds a few years older than me are also happy to infer legendary status on him.