It is doubtful there has been quite so compelling a rivalry in the Premier League era as that between Arsenal and Manchester United and their managers, Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, in the late 1990s.

Wenger has often been characterised as the closest thing the modern English game has seen to Ferguson but what the Frenchman’s trials and tribulations in the 14 years since Arsenal last won the championship have done, aside from severely damaging what once promised to be a rich legacy, is reaffirm what a singly unique individual Ferguson was.

Wenger’s complaints about the financial largesse of clubs such as Manchester City and Chelsea have been used, in part, to try to deflect attention from, or perhaps even help to explain, Arsenal’s dwindling involvement in one title race after another.

But it says everything about Ferguson’s ability to stay ahead of the curve that his greatest period of success at Old Trafford actually came at a time when the club’s purse strings were at their tightest and the challenge presented by the likes of Chelsea and City could have consumed him and his side in the way it has Wenger and Arsenal.

The onerous interest and debt repayments brought about by the Glazer family’s takeover of United in May 2005 severely impacted Ferguson’s ability to compete in the transfer market and yet between then and his retirement eight years later he delivered five league titles, a Champions League, three League Cups and one Club World Cup.