Why Manchester United can win the Premier League title in 2028

Erik ten Hag's cheerleaders liked to point out that Alex Ferguson won the FA Cup amid one of Manchester United's worst league seasons in 1990. Three years later, United were the inaugural Premier League champions.

Not many United fans will be grasping at that straw as the club targets a 21st title in 2028, the year of United’s 150th anniversary. United were predictably ridiculed for that ambition. One columnist suggested they might as well target Mars instead. Then Sir Jim Ratcliffe gave him an interview.

History shows United, 13th in 1990, can transform from underachieving also-rans to champions. Coincidentally, United are currently 13th. Nobody believes they have the wherewithal to finish in the top half, so this season would be only their second bottom-half finish since Denis Law's backheel in 1974.

Football has evolved so much since the early Nineties it rendered the desperate Ferguson-Ten Hag comparison moot. Harking back to Brian Clough taking Derby County from the Second Division to English champions within three years in 1972 and making Nottingham Forest champions in their first season back in the top flight in 1978 are also extraneous.

There is scant recent evidence of an unlikely annus mirabilis at United. The last two times they regained the title in 2011 and 2013, it was the in the season after they had relinquished it on the final day.

Under Ferguson, the longest stretch without the Premier League trophy in the Old Trafford museum were the four years between 2003-07. United finished third, third and second but the period was fraught: Rock of Gibraltar, Malcolm Glazer, Ferguson’s “If you don’t like it, go and watch Chelsea”, Roy Keane playing the pundit and Ruud van Nistelrooy banished. A banner before the