When Old Trafford saluted the return of King Eric Cantona
So the following season started with similar trepidation, exacerbated by the fact Ferguson decided to sell Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis and Mark Hughes, three hugely popular players, and entrust untried youngsters with getting the club back to winning ways.
Time would show it was absolute folly to ever question the great man but the opening-day defeat at Aston Villa, followed by BBC pundit Alan Hansen’s proclamation that you never win anything with kids, made the mood particularly apprehensive.
The way we look back at what would ultimately be our second Double is that Cantona came back and galvanised the team, starting from where he left off and scoring loads of important goals, particularly in 1-0 victories, before slamming in that volley against Wembley to defeat Liverpool in the cup final.
That does some injustice to the players who, without him, embarked on a five-game winning run in the league after the Villa defeat, before a goalless draw at Sheffield Wednesday left us in third place as the calendar moved to October.
