Sometimes in football there is no need for a team talk to fire up the players. Occasionally the other team have already done the job for you and that was the case for Sir Alex Ferguson on this day 28 years ago.
United opened their March schedule with a home game against Ipswich Town, with the Reds three points behind league leaders Blackburn Rovers and without talisman Eric Cantona, who was five weeks into a lengthy ban for attacking a Crystal Palace fan at Selhurst Park.
They left M16 with a record-breaking 9-0 win under their belts - their biggest league win in 103 years and still the joint-biggest winning margin in Premier League history. Andy Cole scored five and remains one of just a few Premier League players to do so.
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In hindsight, a dominant performance from Ferguson's side was on the cards. Ipswich had won just six league games all season and were rooted to the bottom of the table, while United were vying for the Premier League title. Cole had only joined from Newcastle United a few months prior but was already in the goals, netting against both Aston Villa and Manchester City in the previous month.
One of the Tractor Boys' few wins that campaign came at home to the Reds, with John Lyall guiding his side to an unlikely 3-2 victory before being dismissed later that season. Ferguson's men felt a little aggrieved after the defeat, with the home side celebrating a touch too enthusiastically for Brian McClair's liking.
“It always stuck with me that Sir Matt Busby once said, 'you have to be humble and gracious in defeat or victory', and Ipswich were not on that day,” the former United man said. “They were delighted to win, of course, but they were more than exuberant in their celebrations, so that stuck a bit.”
That defeat and the Ipswich celebrations that followed stuck in United minds, and the Reds had their chance to exact revenge the following March. Roy Keane had the home side in the lead inside 15 minutes, and Cole netted twice before half-time to send the Reds into the break 3-0 up.
No doubt with the celebrations at Portman Road still fresh in the mind of many, Ferguson instructed his players to be ruthless in the second half and they complied. Cole made it four on 53 minutes and Mark Hughes added another 120 seconds later. It was six by the time an hour had passed.
Cole had ample time to take his personal tally to five, with Hughes grabbing a second and Paul Ince chipping in to pile on the embarrassment.
After the humiliation was complete, Ferguson praised the performance as a "once in a lifetime" display.
“I have never seen us score more than five goals at Old Trafford,” the Scot said. “The most important aspect was the passion, the passing and the movement – it was magnificent. This is the kind of performance you always dream about but only happens once in a lifetime.”
"We were ruthless," McClair said of the result after the final whistle. "Nine could have been 10 or 11. We never stopped, we just kept going. We were never satisfied.
"They’d been smug about beating us over there, but it wasn’t a case of 'we’re going to humiliate you and grind you into dust', it was just 'we’re going to score as many as we can and keep going until it’s over'. That’s just the Manchester United way. It’s never over."
Journalist Michael Crick later wrote that Ferguson was praying his side wouldn't make it 10 for fear of opposite manager and fellow countryman George Burley, who refused to speak to the press after the game.
The thumping win chipped away at Blackburn's goal difference advantage, but a 1-0 win for Rovers kept them top with Kenny Dalglish dismissing the emphatic win, saying: "You get three points whether you win 9–0 or 1–0."
That much is true and despite going top briefly the following week with a 1-0 win at Wimbledon, a draw against Tottenham and defeat at Liverpool left Ferguson's side second where they would stay for the rest of the season.
But the result remains etched into United history and, speaking long after his time in M16, Cole admitted he is still asked about his five-goal haul.
“I was on holiday two years ago in Barbados with my family and I half recognised a man looking at me,” he recalled. “It was Craig Forrest, the Ipswich goalkeeper that day. He introduced me to his wife as the man who made his life a misery. He was a nice lad, but a striker has to do what he has to do.”
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