Little Book of Manchester United (21 page)

*A youthful David Beckham in action for United Youths.

Two more wins followed in 1994-95 and 2002-03 to leave United standing on top of the pile with nine titles although a tenth crown proved to be, hopefully temporarily, beyond them as they lost 4-3 on penalties to Liverpool in 2007 after the game had been tied at 2-2 after extra time. Amazingly, 6,492 spectators attended the ‘junior Manchester derby’ in February 2006 that saw City knock United out of the Youth Cup by a single goal.

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Manchester United kept a total of 1,681 clean sheets in their 5,161 matches to the end of the 2007-08 season. Of these, 1,344 came in League matches with a further 152 in the FA Cup, 59 in the League Cup and 114 in Europe. United saw their Premiership record for the most clean sheets in a campaign (24 achieved in 1994-95 when they ironically finished second behind Blackburn Rovers) broken by Chelsea during the 2004-05 season when they only conceded a miserly 15 goals. Peter Schmeichel’s record of playing 694 minutes without conceding a goal has also since been extended, first by Chelsea’s Petr Cech, with 1,024 minutes, and then by one of Schmeichel’s successors, Edwin Van der Sar. There were 1,311 minutes between Nasri’s strike for Arsenal on 8 November 2008 and Peter Lovenkrands’ opener for Newcastle on 4 March 2009.

*Peter Schmeichel celebrates in May 1999.

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Published by G2 Entertainment Limited

Publishers Jules Gammond and Alan Jones

Written by Ian Welch with Jules Gammond

First published in the UK in 2007

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Printed and bound printed in the EU

ISBN 978-1-907803-06-2

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