It's the summer of 2006, and Manchester United are in a crisis.
This is not the usual football "crisis" -- which increasingly means little more than "they've lost their last two matches" -- but a genuine, wide-ranging, major question about how Manchester United are attempting to achieve success. Chelsea have won the last two Premier League titles. Arsenal have reached the Champions League final and are moving to a new home, while Liverpool have followed European Cup success with FA Cup success and are surely now ready to challenge for the title.
And what of Manchester United? They've gone three seasons without a league title, the longest barren spell in the Premier League under Sir Alex Ferguson, and they finished bottom of a relatively weak Champions League group. Their most consistent performer from the previous five years, Ruud van Nistelrooy, has left for Real Madrid, and the two players supposed to step up in his absence, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, have had a bust-up at the World Cup so serious that recently retired Alan Shearer (now a television pundit) is encouraging Rooney to turn up for preseason training and punch Ronaldo.
In central midfield, long-serving captain Roy Keane was effectively kicked out midway through last season following a row with management. Paul Scholes missed the second half of the campaign with a vision problem that could threaten his career. United's two most-used central midfielders in the 2005-06 Premier League were John O'Shea, a defender, and Alan Smith, a forward. In truth, it's a bit of a shambles.
