Steve Bruce, the Manchester United captain insisted that he had heard Eric Catona utter only one word of English since his unexpected arrival at Old Trafford. A glance at the United statistics since his debut in early December offered the clue that the word which constituted Cantona’s limited vocabulary was “goal”.

In the four league games that Cantona had started, he had scored four goals. This has coincided with United’s most dominant performances of the season and they sat on the top of the premier league and were the book maker’s favourites to lift the title after a more than two-decade-old wait.

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