The title in two minutes

United are English league champions for the 18th time.

1907/08, 1910/1911, 1951/52, 1955/56, 1956/57, 1964/65, 1966/67, 1992/93, 1993/94, 1995/96, 1996/97, 1998/99, 1999/00, 2000/01, 2002/03, 2006/07, 2007/08, 2008/09

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. We’re not holding our breath, but one day the facts – a popular word this season – might stack up enough for the penny to drop elsewhere. Cast your minds back to 1998/99. Notice any similarities? In that season United won two of the opening five games. Crisis, they said. Whatever. Last season? Slow start. This season? Slow start. There’s a pattern emerging.

Chelsea, under ‘Big Phil’ Scolari, made hay in the early-season sunshine. A(nother) new dawn broke over Eastlands. And Liverpool stirred their loins. All the while we waited in the wings, and when the supporting cast had delivered their best lines and started to ad lib, the leading men assumed centre stage, parts learned off by heart, roles well-defined and well-rehearsed. Lights, camera, action!

By October’s end and a 2-0 victory over West Ham – in which the newly-crowned World Footballer of the Year (Ronny, who else?) bagged his first league brace of the campaign – the boss had started to talk about “a momentum that I believe will take some stopping”. New boys Hull showed the teeth that had characterised the Tigers’ pre-Christmas campaign, leaving Old Trafford after a spirited 4-3 defeat, but, to quote the bard of Stretford, Morrissey, November spawned a monster – especially if you happened to be an opposing striker. For the 13 league games after the 2-1 reverse at Arsenal that followed Hull, our defence turned away all-comers, setting a British record shut-out of 1,311 minutes into the bargain.

To prove we’re not just take, take, take, we even offered Newcastle fans a rare moment of cheer as Peter Lovenkrands put the ball past Edwin van der Sar – the first time we’d gone behind since January. But in between, we’d won at Eastlands, returned from Japan with the Club World Cup, battered Stoke 5-0 (ton-up for Ronny), and made the Champions League knockout stage as group winners. Paul Scholes was back in the fold and the next generation had taken us to the Carling Cup final. Phew.

And so, here we are: champions once again. It wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon, but we entered the final straight, firing on all cylinders to reach our third title in a row for the second time under Sir Alex Ferguson – something no English club has achieved before. Brilliant season? That’s a fact.