Manchester United on the Verge of Making History

Much like Liverpool in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, Manchester United have undoubtedly been the driving force of British football of recent times with ten league titles and five FA Cup victories in the past two decades.

Since its inception in 1992, Manchester United has won the Premiership ten times, more than any other club. With 17 top flight titles to its name, Man United still lag behind northern rivals Liverpool who have 18; however, with the Red Devils seemingly on course to retain their Premiership crown, 2008/09 could be the season that they catch up with Liverpool.

Manchester United's dominance of the Premiership began in its first season. Despite an indifferent start, the signing of Eric Cantona in November 1992 marked the changing point as the talismanic Frenchman guided them to the 1992/93 title, beating Aston Villa into second place with a ten point margin.

The team went on to win four of the first five Premierships - their run only broken by an Alan Shearer inspired Blackburn Rovers team in 1994/95 - and in all won nine of the first 12.

Arguably the most notable of these was the 1998/99 season when Manchester United won a historic treble of the Premiership, FA Cup and Champions League. Before the season started, Sir Alex Ferguson spent £28m bolstering his squad, twice breaking the club's record transfers when he signed Jaap Stam and Dwight Yorke. After winning the league on the last day, they beat Newcastle in the FA Cup final before triumphing over Bayern Munich, coming from a goal behind to both equalise and score the winner in stoppage time.

After winning the league in 2002/03, Man United went three seasons without another title - their longest in Premiership history - as Arsenal went unbeaten to lift the 2003/04 trophy and Chelsea, enjoying the benefits of the Russian ruble, won back to back championships afterwards.

The 2006/07 season saw Manchester United reclaim their crown before successfully defending the title the following season, as Cristiano Ronaldo topped the scoring charts with 31 goals.

The start of the 2008/09 season saw Man United once again falter and Liverpool took the reins as they seemed to be looking to increase the gap between the two sides. However, by Christmas, Manchester United had closed the gap with two thirds of the season gone, the Red Devils look firmly in control of the championship race.