There has been a tide of appreciative articles in the UK sporting press since Ryan Giggs. 35, engineered Manchester United’s 3-0 win over Chelsea at the weekend from the center of midfield. According to Rob Bagchi, the former left-winger “thrillingly rolled back the years against Chelsea in a performance that made the true football romantic tingle and captured just why he has been the heartbeat of so many great sides at Manchester United over the past 18 years.”
Although Giggs has been hinting that this could be his final season, “he orchestrated United’s victory with such flair, sound judgment and discipline” that this season could turn out to be “an Indian summer rather than a glorious swan song.”
In an era when United’s success has made it easy for fans outside of the club to object to a lot of their players on the grounds of “behavior or attitude or just simply good old spite,” Giggs has been the exception, “largely because he has so much to boast about yet seems to have such little inclination to do so.” Bagchi recalls that after winning the treble in 1999, United manager Alex Ferguson said of the day he signed Giggs that, “I can honestly say that whatever United have paid me in my years at Old Trafford was justified at a stroke by securing Ryan.”