5 times Alex Ferguson led makeshift Man Utd teams to massive wins

Sir Alex Ferguson was special for so many reasons – not least his ability to deliver big results for Manchester United when key players were missing.

United dominated English football under Ferguson, winning 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and four League Cups in his 26 years in charge.

The Scot also, of course, delivered the Champions League twice, plus the European Cup Winners’ Cup, a UEFA Super Cup, an Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA World Club Cup at a time when English clubs struggled to sign the very best players in the world.

There were times, in fact, that United didn’t even have what most people would consider to be the strongest squad in the Premier League, certainly after Chelsea and then Manchester City had been taken over, but Ferguson was able to instil a winning mentality in his players, and fear into opponents, almost irrespective of the team he put out.

Conversely, David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick have all complained about the lack of quality in the United squad since Ferguson’s departure, with none of them able to deliver a league title.

But the Fergie factor worked some minor miracles. Yes, he presided over some of the greatest sides ever assembled in British football, but when signings fell through or the depth of the squad was pushed to its limit, he simply got on with the job.

Here are five occasions – in no particular order – when United were victorious when they had little right to be.

It wasn’t necessarily the win that was remarkable but the nature of it when, with the 2011-12 season barely underway, Ferguson gave Arsene Wenger the most severe shoeing of their long and tempestuous rivalry.

And he did it with a team that featured a central