‘The King is dead, long live Prince Edward,’ wrote The Independent. But when Manchester United picked Teddy Sheringham as Eric Cantona’s replacement in the summer of 1997, not everybody was convinced.
Plenty were unsure about Sheringham when he arrived at Old Trafford from Tottenham for £3.5million, with questions raised about the wisdom and ambition of signing a 31-year-old, two months Cantona’s senior, who had never won a major honour and had scored only eight Premier League goals during the previous season.
This was during the summer Inter Milan broke the transfer record to sign 21-year-old Ronaldo from Barcelona for £19.5million, while at Old Trafford, they settled for Sheringham and Henning Berg, despite chief executive Martin Edwards bragging about how the club had submitted three offers of over £10million for defenders plying their trade in Italy.
Edwards and United faced accusations, largely from their own supporters, of taking a tight-fisted approach to their task of staying at the top of the Premier League and climbing those final steps in Europe.
Edwards, as always, rode it out. “I can’t think of any better player to replace Eric Cantona,” he said. “They are slightly different in style, but it is one big name out and one big name in.
“We have been looking for a while for a front player of this quality. We thought it wasn’t going to happen, but it was a nice surprise to know Teddy was available.
“The price originally was a bit prohibitive, around £6million. But Teddy is just 31 and there is plenty of mileage left in him.”
Edwards may have been proven correct in the long run, but things could hardly got off to a worse start for Sheringham in a United shirt.
On the opening weekend of the season, making an immediate return to White Hart Lane, Sheringham missed a spot-kick against his old side, and though his new team-mates dug him out on that occasion, immediately, it drew negative comparisons with penalty king Cantona.
Sheringham was confident enough to brush it off, but it cannot have helped that Eric was still at the forefront of United fans’ minds, and even the manager’s.
Barely a week after Sheringham’s debut, Ferguson penned this missive to his ex-player, even discussing where his replacement wasn’t matching up.
Alex Ferguson sent this letter to Eric Cantona after he left MUFC (from Leading http://t.co/xC4AoOD5mQ) #mufc pic.twitter.com/AD3TN8thWi
— Barney @Red News (@barneyrednews) September 22,…
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