Manchester: Sir Alex Ferguson believes the 1999 treble-winning squad was not nearly as strong as his current Manchester United group, and said he could have played a different XI at Real Madrid on Wednesday and achieved the same result.
United drew the opening leg of the Champions League last-16 tie 1-1. With Reading on Monday at Old Trafford in the fifth round of the FA Cup, and a 12-point lead in the Premier League, United’s tilt at winning a second treble is on course.
Asked about similarities between the 1998-99 campaign and the current one, Ferguson said: “We lost to Middlesbrough in December and we never lost again. It was a tough FA Cup run that season, really tough. We were up against Premier League teams in every round. It’s nice to look back at these things and how it was done with the squad of players I had, which is not nearly as strong as the one I have now.”
Ferguson believes the current group has more depth than the squad in 1999. “Yes, numbers wise,” he said. “When we went to the final, [Roy] Keane and [Paul] Scholes were suspended, but Henning Berg was the only injury and I had to pull in Jonathan Greening, who had only played once or twice, and he actually got a winner’s medal for sitting on the bench. That gives you an idea of the respective strength of the squads.
Source: http://gulfnews.com