Newton Heath was the original name of Manchester United Football Club when it was founded in 1878. Manchester United became its new name in 1902. When United moved to Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams, in 1910, they were living in their current location for more than a century. With a record 20 top-tier League Championships (13 of which came during the Premier League era), 12 FA Cups, 5 League Cups, and 3 European Cups, United is perhaps the most successful club in English football history. They are the only English team to have also won the World Club Championship. Find the list of the Top 10 Manchester United Players of all time below.
Top 10 Manchester United Players of All Time
Cristiano Ronaldo (2003-09)Â
Ronaldo impressed Sir Alex Ferguson and the Manchester United team in a friendly in August 2003. The 18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo left Sporting Lisbon to join Manchester United. After the game, United and Sporting agreed to pay £12.24 million. Ronaldo signed a contract with United for the 2003–04 season. Ferguson persisted with his young talent in spite of his lackluster performance for the team. All of a sudden in the 2006–07 season, things fell into place.
Ruud Van Nisterooy, United’s talisman striker who had been in conflict with Ronaldo, left the team. The Portuguese player developed into a more versatile attacking role than the winger role. With greater leeway moving forward, Ronaldo thrived, making 53 appearances across all competitions. He scored 23 goals to help United win the Premier League for the first time since 2002–03. The team once again proved to be a force on the big stage. They made it to the FA Cup Final and the Semi-Finals of the European Cup. Ronaldo starts of our list of the Top 10 Manchester United players of all time.
Bryan Robson (1981-94)
When he took over as Manchester United manager, Ron Atkinson gave first priority to recruiting his old charge, Bryan Robson. Robson’s £1.5 million transfer fee set a British record at the time. He more than made up for it by playing for United for the next 13 years. He became the captain with the longest tenure in club history.
Before enjoying his greatest success at United under Sir Alex Ferguson’s leadership, Robson won the FA Cup twice: once in 1983 and once in 1985. In the inaugural Premier League season of 1992–93, Robson ended United’s 26-year wait for a League Championship by winning the 1991 Cup Winners Cup.
Jack Rowley (1937-54)
Sir Matt Busby’s first great Manchester United team had Jack Rowley, dubbed “The Gunner” for his prodigious goal-scoring record and precision shooting, which saw him score 211 goals in 434 games. In the 1948 FA Cup Final, United defeated the legendary Stanley Matthews Blackpool squad 4-2 thanks to two goals from Rowley. In addition, Rowley scored the most goals for United during their 1951–52 League triumph. He ended with 30 goals in 41 games across all competitions.
Rowley became the first player in United history to score more than 200 goals for the squad after serving as a first-team player for 17 years until he departed the team in 1954. He managed clubs until his retirement in 1969. Rowley passed away in June 1998, aged 77.
Wayne Rooney (2004-17)
In stoppage time on January 21, 2017, Wayne Rooney hit an incredible free kick to give Manchester United a thrilling equalizer against Stoke City. With the goal, Rooney passed Sir Bobby Charlton to become the all-time leading scorer for United, hitting the 250-goal milestone. Before returning to Everton in the summer of 2017, Rooney would score three more goals while wearing a United shirt. It increased his career total to 253.
Thirteen years after Rooney’s stunning, record-breaking career at United began—when he was a young, inexperienced 18-year-old signing for £33.3 million from Everton—it came to an end. His United career started off on a bright note on September 28, 2004, when he scored a hat trick against Fenerbache. He went on to play well for his new team.
George Best (1963-74)
In 1963, George Best made his first appearance for the first team as a 17-year-old rookie. He signing with Manchester United as a 15-year-old schoolboy. Best was a great dribbler who possessed exceptional balance, lightning-fast speed, and pinpoint shooting accuracy. He was an essential member of Sir Matt Busby’s rebuilding team. He played a major role after the Munich Air Disaster. During his 11-year tenure with the team, the Northern Irishman led the League in scoring for five straight seasons.
He played for United during their 1963 FA Cup, 1967 League Championship, and 1968 European Cup victories (the latter in which he scored the game-winning goal to give United the lead back against Benfica in extra time). Even more well-known than his football skills, though, was Best’s celebrity status as a non-football player in the 1960s. The term “El Beatle” was given to him in homage to the Beatles, a phenomenon in music.
Eric Cantona (1992-97)
Eric Cantona’s acquisition by Manchester United was entirely coincidental, but it was a stroke of serendipity that completed the picture, transforming United from championship challengers to champions. This happened as a result of Bill Fotherby, the chairman of Leeds at the time, getting in touch with Martin Edwards, the chairman of Manchester United at the time, to find out whether Denis Irwin, the left-back for United, was available. When Irwin was unavailable, Edwards asked about Leeds striker Cantona with Ferguson’s support, and the rest is history.
Cantona made a strong front-line partnership with Mark Hughes and blended in with the team with ease. After a lengthy 26-year wait, United lost just two league games after his arrival and eventually returned the League title to Old Trafford. Because of Cantona’s Midas touch, United improved the next season and won the FA Cup and league titles for the first time ever. The man known to the supporters as “The King,” Cantona led the league in goals scored with 26 goals across all competitions, including two in the FA Cup final triumph over Chelsea. Cantona makes the top five of our list of Top 10 Manchester United players of all time.
Roy Keane (1993-2005)
In 2018, thirteen years after his highly contentious departure from the team, it is easy to forget that Roy Keane led United to unparalleled success from 1997 to 2005. The considerably more well-known and seasoned Paul Ince and Bryan Robson were replaced in the center of United’s midfield by the young Irishman, who was signed in 1993 for a then British record transfer cost of £3.75 million from Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest.
On the field, Keane embodied manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, with his fierce temper and unwavering competitive spirit. In 1994 and 1996, Keane was instrumental in United’s League and FA Cup Doubles. Following Eric Cantona’s unexpected departure, he was named captain the following year. He guided the team to its greatest-ever triumph in 1998–1999, having missed a large portion of 1997–1998 due to injury.
Ryan Giggs (1991-2014)Â
In club football, Ryan Giggs has won more silverware than anybody else. He won 13 Premier League titles, four FA Cups, four League Cups, two European Cups, the Intercontinental Cup, the Super Cup, and the Club World Cup during his 23-year time with the United first team. Giggs’s remarkable United career commenced when he inked a professional contract with the team in the 1990–91 campaign. He then had to fight for a spot in the starting lineup at left wing. It was a position that manager Sir Alex Ferguson was finding difficult to fill.
As he dominated English football, Giggs won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award in 1991–1992 and 1992–1993. Giggs was an excellent distributor and goal scorer who could easily outpace opponents with his unparalleled speed and dribbling abilities. After being promoted to the first team, Giggs’s play saw a remarkable upturn, and for the next two decades, the club saw unparalleled success.
Giggs is most known for his winning goal against Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup Semi-Final Replay. With just 10 players left and quickly losing momentum, United seemed vulnerable to their fierce adversaries. But, Giggs dribbled 50 yards, past every member of Arsenal’s defense. He fired a shot beyond David Seaman into the roof of the Arsenal goal. After his playing career ended, Giggs remained involved with United as assistant manager. He served under new manager Louis Van Gaal and player-coach under David Moyes.
Bobby Charlton (1956-73)
Having spent practically his entire life connected to Manchester United, Sir Bobby Charlton is the epitome of the club. At the age of fifteen, Charlton joined United in January 1953. He made his first appearance for the first team in October 1956, scoring twice against Charlton Athletic. The following February, in another match against Charlton, he scored his first hat-trick for the squad. Charlton was a member of the youthful academy talents that Sir Matt Busby assembled. The United team known as the “Busby Babes,” won the First Division Championship in 1957.
The Munich Air Disaster claimed the lives of eight United players, as well as 36 members of the coaching staff and media when the team’s plane crashed on the icy Munich runway while it was returning from a European Cup Semi-Final match against Red Star Belgrade. Despite this, the team’s potential for success was never realized. One of the few survivors of the collision, Charlton played a key role in Busby’s reconstruction of the United team. He would go on to win two more League Championships with the team and the 1968 European Cup. In 1975, Charlton announced his retirement from full-time play, a year after departing United following twenty years of service. In 1984, he was appointed to the United Board of Directors, where he has remained ever since.
Paul Scholes (1994-2013)Â
One of the best midfielders of all time, if not the best, is Paul Scholes. Numerous illustrious colleagues of Scholes’s, like Edgar Davids, Andrea Pirlo, and Zinedine Zidane, have expressed their admiration for him as a player and belief that he is among the best. Such high appreciation is entirely justified. Scholes made 718 appearances and scored 155 goals for the team he grew up with. After making his first-team debut straight out of the United academy, Scholes impressed with five goals from 25 appearances across all competitions. He later played primarily as a central striker, scoring 14 goals in 31 appearances despite big-name signings like Eric Cantona, and was a major factor in the club’s 1995–96 Double triumph making him top our list of the Top 10 Manchester United players of all time.
One of the best midfielders of all time, if not the best, is Paul Scholes. Numerous illustrious colleagues of Scholes’s, like Edgar Davids, Andrea Pirlo, and Zinedine Zidane, have expressed their admiration for him as a player and belief that he is among the best. Such high appreciation is entirely justified. Scholes made 718 appearances and scored 155 goals for the team he grew up with.
When Scholes made his first-team debut straight out of the United academy, he impressed with five goals from 25 appearances across all competitions. Later, he was a major factor in the club’s Double triumph in 1995–96, playing primarily as a central striker and scoring 14 times in 31 appearances despite Andy Cole and Eric Cantona being big-time signings for United.
