And it is difficult not to wonder what would have happened had Ruud van Nistelrooy not had the training-ground bust-up with Cristiano Ronaldo that led to manager Sir Alex Ferguson cashing in to the tune of a reported £10.3m.
Van Nistelrooy's goals have fired Madrid to the verge of the La Liga title in his first season at the Bernabeu. If they win their last three games, Madrid will pip arch-rivals Barcelona after a remarkable revival from the depths of a cold winter.
And it is bizarre, at the end of a season in which United scored 83 goals, their best return since van Nistelrooy's first season of 2001-02, that there should be such an evident need of a man who can hit the back of the net (150 goals in 219 United appearances) with the unerring monotony which the Dutchman has managed.
Wrecked
Young guns Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo weighed in with 23 goals apiece as the Reds raced to the Premiership title, to the FA Cup final and to the Champions League semi-final.
There were also the contributions of Louis Saha (13 in 25 starts) until injury wrecked his season and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's typical addition of 11 from the bench or after coming in from the cold.
And with midfielders and defenders also chipping in - Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs scored six apiece, Paul Scholes seven, and Nemanja Vidic four - it was enough to keep United's noses in front of ultra-cautious Chelsea.
Departure
Such a sharing of the workload may be the plus side of the departure of van Nistelrooy.
For four seasons, United's basic plan was to get the ball wide to David Beckham, Ronaldo or Ryan Giggs and hope they could plonk it in an area where van Nistelrooy lurked.
But van Nistelrooy was not a great workhorse, and was not the best striker at holding the ball and bringing others into play, a frequent source of irritation to teammates and management alike.
But he has flourished in Spain, where they don't care how many miles you cover, as long as you keep hitting the back of the net.
Van Nistelrooy has already bagged 38 goals in 56 games for Madrid, to make this his second-best season since leaving PSV Eindhoven in 2001.
And team-mate David Beckham, who supplied so many of his United goals, believes he has become a better player since moving to Spain.
"It is hard to better what he did and what he achieved at Manchester United but he is a great player who will move on and will get better, and he has proved that at Real Madrid," said Beckham.
"His main strength is scoring goals. That's what he does, that is what he is paid to do. But he also works hard for the team."
Who would you like to see brought in? Have your say.
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there will be plenty on here ready to put down rudd. what we must not forget in that last season up to november he scored 20 goals playing in front of scholes and keano. he then started to struggle but then again he was playing with fletch oshea and smithy providing the bullets.rudd is a legend.
Personally thought he as a hard worker until his latter months when fergie had obviously had a bust up with him. also thought he was good at holding it up and bringing others into play.
He is the best goalscorer on the planet and has been for the past 5 years, luckily we havent missed him , but when you see saha miss more one on ones than he scores, sometimes i still wish we had ruuuud. Legend.
benni mcarthy, proven scorer in the premiership and europe; works like a trojan is quick good in the air and scores lots of goals in a mediocre side. Along with pederson[cant believe he is still at rovers; a real handful, great shot and another with a trojan work ethic.] Put these aqusitions with the return of the young players from loan and the moving on of a few of our leesser lights[fletcher richardson;evra, silvestre smudger and solskjaerlast 2 exempt from the lesser lights comments] we could really be on the verge of something big again!!
I'm happy for Ruud to be honest but I still think him leaving was the right thing for both parties and I said so at the time. Unfortunately he backed Roy Keane at the wrong time and ran into SAF as a result.
As a replacement if we can't get Etoo I would like to see someone young such as Huntelaar or Alves to come in for Saha when he is injured while they acclimatise or I would like to see someone like McCarthy or Anelka who have already shown they can cut it in the premiership even if they only have 3 or 4 years left at the top level. Centre forwards who love to score. Would also love to see Malouda. He would be massive for us.
If Ruud had been with us the treble might be
only one match away.
skh , pj , malaysia
you got to admit what a top player we let go for a measley 10million,if fergie would only not be so pig headed ruud would still be there scoring
Amazing when you think that United effectively finished the last quarter of the season - without a renowned number 9!!
No Saha & no Larsson - so what could United have achieved??
Where did you get 38 goals from? Are you including friendlies in there too?
Should never have let him go. He and Stam are the worst examples of letting the wrong players go.
ruud has come under lots of criticism and blamed for our one dimension play! he is a fantastic striker and i thought he worked hard, held the ball up and played other team members in until it all blew up!
yes ruud did in the end contribute to our one dimension but keano also contributed (who would dream of having a go at him)
still cant believe we only got 10mil for him! we should of got at least 20mil if not closer to 30mil!
Although he was one of my favourite players throughout his united career, I do think we have benefitted from him leaving, as our style of play has been far more fluid. However, I like many others am worried at the state of our business side, i.e. transfers. How could we let the record goalscorer in the CL (in one season) and in the PL (many scoring records) leave for just over 10m, when Chelsea payed 30m for Sheva? People say that Ruud had a falling out with SAF, so that's why the price was low. But sheva, on the other hand, declared his intent to leave, yet Milan still got 30m for a 30 year old. Likewise we are paying way over the odds for midfielders. The myth that because we are united we have to pay top dollar is ridiculous. Real Madrid are just as rich, yet they buy players from us on the cheap. We need to face facts, our negotiating teams are awful, it is not because we're rich.
Agree with Duncan Ruud was a great player but it was in our best intrest and we have won the league imo because we now play a style of football that would not suit Ruud. Good luck to him though. Red John sell Evra your having a laugh the guy is qaulity. As for signing half the Blackburn sqaud no thanks. Hard work alone is not good enough without top class ability.
DC In Amsterdaam well said.
Since he has left our football has been fluid and dynamic; teams were scared of Manchester again. We had lost that fear factor with Ruud in the side. He is selfish and plays for himself. Football is a team game. Ronaldo and other players could not express themselves. The ball had to be moved on to a target man.
United should never ever play with a target man. It is when Ruud came to United that we started going backwards.
Ruud never scored a goal against Liverpool, you know why Hypia knew how to mark him. Just donot let him into the penalty box.
He is benefiting from lazy defenders in spain.
That said he is an above average player.
....He is not a United legend.
Some of you need to watch the United v Arsenal FA Cup final.
he missed sitter after sitter in that game until we lost through penalties.
apparently, he had intimated he wanted to go.
If I do that at work I will be fired! Or charged of professional negligence!
What kind of response is MEN looking for?
Yes, Ruud was a fantastic striker, yes we play better with a more fluid attack, and yes Ruud now plays for Real Madrid.
(I wonder how he will do next year without Becks?)
if we're desperate for a striker what the hell are Saha, Smith, Rooney, ole, Dong and Rossi doing on the books?
Ruud is a legend and the way he left was disgraceful but he left and we've won the title. With 6 strikers on the books where are we going to put the 7th? What we're desperate for is a clearout of strikers, Smith and Ole have to make room for a big, fast centre forward, the front runners at the moment are Huntelaar and Alves but we have to get rid first.
Sorry but cant agree with a word that you wrote there Hilton.
Ruud was superb for us and he is a legend in my eyes, the best finisher I have seen at the club and I think it's disgraceful the way that some fans have heaped all the blame for our poor form on Ruud's shoulders when it was Fergies mismanagement that put us in that situation in the first place.
IMO Ruud could play in todays team, he can link up play and to say he is selfish makes me wonder what people were watching.
Ruud is class and we should have kept him. We won the League despite, not because of,letting him go.
We now need at least 2 strikers this summer.
Ole is finished and Saha is pushing 30 and rarely fit. Smudger doesn't score and is as slow as Fletcher.
Relying on Rossi after his getting a few goals in Parma, would be a massive gamble.
With the cupboard being so bare, Viduka, for nothing would be good business and I wouldn't rule out Bent as a different option. Eto'o wont come to rainy Manchester even if the Glazers were prepared to stump up.
Other world class candidates are thin on the ground so we may need to speculate on the fragile Owen or the untried Huntelaar or Alves.
What is certain is that we cannot go into the new season relying again on the phenominal midfield goal contributions that made the difference in 06/07.
And retirement looms for RUUD.
Ruud won't repeat this performance again next year. He had a point to prove to Fergie and he did, but Ruud is approaching the end of his career now. I'd be bitter if we had cut him as a 26/27 year old in his prime, so Fergie decision was the correct one.
In todays game you cant let players go because of a falling out,and thats a fact,ok stam wrote about tapping up in his book,not a good idea.
But ruud that was a total shambles.
Kiss and make up.
Too slow. Too big headed and inconsiderate. Talking about Ronaldo's late dad like he did when the lad was still grieving.
No one is bigger than the team.
again I repeat he was a good player. Maybe not for UNITED.
i want to know more about huntelaar. apparentley he's the next ruud so he will grow old with this team if we sign him. he's scored some goals but is he united quality? i think pederson would give us good cover on the left as he's the type of player that doesnt need to get to the byeline to put a quality ball in. also a goal threat.
I'm seeing a lot about Eto'o. He is good don't get me wrong. But I have been watching Barcelona a lot on the TV recently and Messi is the one to go for if you have that kind of money to burn.
This is all moot. SAF thought the team would play better without Ruud. And that's what happened.
Personally, I think a fit and hungry Ruud in our squad would have made us unbeatable. I also think he IS a legend and one of the best strikers EVER to play at the club.
But I have no idea what effect his staying would have had on the other players in the squad who helped us win the league. For example, would Ronnie be playing for Real instead of Ruud if Fergie hadn't shipped him out when he did?
I know which player I would prefer to have in our squad.
Frank Old Trafford i totally agree with you. We need to clear out in the striker department as we have too many similar players in the book.ie:Ole,Smith,Dong and probably Rossi are nowhere near starting 20 games for MU next season as they are not either good enough(Smith), old(Ole),inexperienced(Rossi) and not proven and ready(Dong) which left only Saha has our only recognised striker but injury prone.
If someone asks my opinion, i will get rid of Smith and Ole and go to the season with a new striker as 1st choice with Saha and Rossi fighting out to be either on the bench or start when necessary.
We would not have won the league with Ruud. he was selfish, done little outside the box and rarely set up team mates. yes he was a great striker and finisher, but he commanded a sysytem to suit him and we have fkurished since he has left.