7. Bryan Robson

Signed from: West Bromwich Albion (£1,500,000), October 1981
Debut: 1-0 loss vs Tottenham Hotspur (League Cup tie), October 7th 1981
League Record: 326 games (+19 as sub), 74 goals
Sold to: Middlesbrough (free transfer), May 1994

What to say? The man was my hero for the first decade and a bit of my life: a giant in a number seven shirt, often needed to carry average United teams to unlikely victories and also determined to throw his body in all manner of danger to the detriment of his own health.

His influence on my childhood cannot be overstated: I wore New Balance boots because he did; I always wanted to wear the number seven shirt because he did and I always, always pretended to be him in the playground kickabouts. You could keep your Marco van Basten, Diego Maradona and John Barnes: Bryan was better then them all.

At the time we signed him, he was the most expensive player in British football – and would remain so until Liverpool paid £1.9 million for Peter Beardsley in 1987. Sir Matt Busby resigned from the board as he was so appalled by the sum, but that other legendary Scots manager Bill Shankly knew better, advising Ron Atkinson to spend whatever it took to bring him to Manchester. At the press conference to unveil Robbo, he was described by his new boss as “pure gold”. Never a truer word spoken. Within a year of signing, he had become club captain and main driving force.

In an era where success was scarce, Robson was the source of many our best moments: two goals in the replay of the 1983 FA Cup final against Brighton, which we won 4-0. Dominating Barcelona in the quarter-final of the next year’s European Cup Winners Cup, scoring twice in a 3-0 win that trumped their 2-0 first leg win and being carried off the pitch by joyous fans. His scousebusting piledriver in the 1985 FA Cup semi-final against a Liverpool team that were winning just about everything in sight at the time.

But then there were the injuries. When I was around nine or ten, I wrote about my hero for a school project and found a list of all the setbacks he’d been through due to his combative style, including breaking his leg three times in one year during the early part of his career at West Brom. These hit United hard: it’s a pretty safe bet that our title challenges in both 1983/84 and 1985/86 were derailed in large part to him being missing with injury.

The amount of times he could single-handedly drive us to victory when the rest of the team were struggling are innumerable. Alex Ferguson knew this too well: while he got rid of some of the big drinkers playing for us when he took over, he knew he had to tolerate Robson’s fondness for a few beers (showing his North-East roots there…) due to his being absolutely vital to us having any chance of winning anything.

I'm not sure if there had been anyone quite like him before, at least in English football: a midfielder capable of breaking up an opposition attack at one end of the field before charging forward to nod in a goal at the other. Players such as Paul Ince, Steven Gerrard and, of course, a certain Cork lad have all excelled at the role since, but Robson was the master: his goalscoring records for club and country were excellent, especially in his peak years.

In the days before Sky Soccer Saturday and the like, I would listen to the radio on a Saturday afternoon waiting for the teams to be read out, holding my breath for when they announced who was the United number seven. If it was Bryan Robson, then you felt we had a chance of winning. If it was anyone else, I’d feel my heart sink in anticipation of defeat as we’d be bullied and outfought by the likes of Wimbledon.

This wasn't just the case for United, either. The national team suffered too. Consider the 1986 World Cup, where his shoulder gave way in the second game. England, after a crap first two games, rallied and made the quarter-finals, where Argentina waited. As is well known, Diego Maradona used a helping hand to put his team one up before, minutes later, having a casual stroll through the England midfield and defence to give them a crucial two goal lead.

But go back and watch that goal from the start and see the complete ease with which Maradona gets past Peter Reid – there is no way on Earth a fit Bryan Robson would have allowed that. He’d have chased him down and booted the short-arsed genius twenty foot in the air if necessary, not fannied out from being scared of a booking.

In the 1990 World Cup in Italy, he was injured again, though it’s fair to say this allowed the young, emerging talents of David Platt and Paul Gascoigne to shine. All the same, you’d have preferred Robson as an option on the bench ahead of the more one-dimensional Steve McMahon. Plus he’d have taken a better penalty than Chris Waddle.

That was also the year he became the first player to lift the FA Cup three times, also scoring in the first game against Crystal Palace. Aged 33, the pressure on him was finally lifting as quality players like Paul Ince were brought in to drive the team from midfield. He was still a first choice when fit, though, and still had enough in the tank to set up both our goals in the Cup Winners Cup final in ’91.

But by the time of the Premiership years, his contribution was pretty limited and he was often kept back as an impact option on the bench. Happily, he played enough games to earn a well-deserved Premiership medal in 1993, lifting the trophy alongside Steve Bruce on a memorable night. He earned another the next season, being fit enough to play a bigger role in our success, including scoring a goal with his genitals in the FA Cup semi-final replay against Oldham. This give him an impressive record of scoring in that stage of the tournament all four times he played in it.

He was denied a fourth FA Cup winners’ medal by virtue of there only being allowed two outfield subs back then and not making the cut for the final. Fergie would later regret not picking him, especially as his long-time captain was set to leave that month to take charge of Middlesbrough, whom he would lead to promotion the following season, also featuring in plenty of games as a player too.

Despite that early success, his career in management has seen more downs than ups. In 2005, he somehow managed to keep his old club West Brom in the Premiership against all the odds, but was sacked the next season when the team failed to build on that high. More recently, following a stint in charge of the Thai national team and a (hopefully successful) fight against throat cancer, he’s been working in an ambassadorial role for United.

A giant of a player – if we’d had a fit young Bryan Robson in our midfield in either of the two Champions League final defeats to Barcelona, I reckon we’d have had a chance. He simply was that good.