The Irish Times - 7th November 1998
Roy Collins
The Brondby manager Ebbe Skovdahl may have been exaggerating, as well as attempting to make his shattered defenders feel slightly less useless, when he described Manchester United's Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole as the best strikers in Europe.
Even so, the words would have wiped the scowl off the face of Cole, who three months ago, preYorke, was struggling to prove that he was the third best striker at Old Trafford. And Skovdahl did point out that it was not so much their individual skills as how they perform together.
That is the key. Yorke and Cole in partnership offer more than the sum of their parts. They are already finishing off each other's moves in the same casual way that long-married couples finish off one another's sentences.
The second goal against Brondby in the Champions League match was a perfect example. Cole stepped over a cross with the instinctive knowledge that Yorke would read the feint, then ran into the middle to receive the return pass where he knew his partner would deliver it.
Players can work together for years without developing that sort of understanding, yet successful double acts in all walks of life have always defied both logic and chemistry. Morecambe and Wise were hardly a bundle of laughs together off stage, and Lennon and McCartney understood harmony only as a musical term.
Equally, Yorke's £12.6 million arrival at Old Trafford in September was meant to be the end of Cole's United career; at one point he was even offered in an exchange. But in the seven games they have started together they have scored 11 goals, while forging an equally unlikely friendship off the pitch.
Cole, who is a more introverted character than the effervescent Yorke, likens their bond to the one he shared with Peter Beardsley at Newcastle, where he scored a Premiership-record 34 goals in 1993-94. He says: "My partnership with Dwight is brilliant and it helps that we are opposites as players because we don't get in each other's way." Tomorrow at Old Trafford the club that sold Cole for £7 million will be hard pressed to stop them.
Their union is helped, says Cole, by the fact that they also get on well off the pitch, demonstrated when they recently helped to launch a book on the life of Arthur Wharton, Britain's first professional black footballer, who played for Darlington, Preston, Rotherham and Stockport between 1885 and 1902.
Wharton, who also set the first world record for the 100 yards and played professional cricket, died penniless in 1930. It is no surprise that two successful black athletes should empathise with one who did not have their power to overcome racism.
Their success on the pitch baffles observers because, superficially at least, they seem so alike. Even their manager Alex Ferguson seems surprised; when he brought Cole back in place of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Southampton on October 3rd it was, he said, simply "to freshen the team up after playing in Europe". Yorke and Cole have started all five games since.
Ireland's Kenny Cunningham stood in awe as they destroyed Wimbledon 5-1 last month, Cole scoring twice and Yorke once. Cunningham said: "You are continually walking a tightrope against them because both are comfortable with the ball into feet and down the sides.
"We tried to condense the game against them, keeping the ball as high up the pitch as possible. But you are always aware of Cole's pace over 20-30 yards. And Yorke can hurt you with the ball at his feet because he can roll you and bring others into play. Individually, Yorke and Cole are two great players. Together, they are lethal."
Ferguson must scarcely believe his luck. Not since the days of Denis Law have the club had a player capable of regularly scoring 20 goals a season, now they have two who could race each other to that total. Remarkably, only one United player - Brian McClair with 25 in 1987-88 - has reached 20 league goals in the quarter of a century since Law's departure.
United have got by with a succession of strikers who offered a lot more than just scoring ability - the likes of Joe Jordan, Mark Hughes and Frank Stapleton, who held up the line and intimidated defenders, and Lou Macari, really an inside-forward. And, latterly, Andrei Kanchelskis, essentially a winger, and Eric Cantona, who was anything he wanted to be.
Now United have two men who could both make an assault on the club's record number of league goals in a season, the 32 scored by Dennis Viollet in 1959-60. Yorke, 27 this week, already has six Premiership goals in seven matches and Cole four from six.
The pair are not only playing with a smile, Cole has sprouted one off the park as well. Aware of the insults that have been mouthed behind his back, as well as openly from the stands, he says: "I'm not bothered what people say about me any more. I have just turned 27 and I haven't got time to worry what other people think. My record speaks for itself."
