Welcome to a new series, in which I pick and rank the 25 greatest Manchester United players. I’m sure 100 per cent of you will agree with every selection and their exact order…

Of course, this is highly subjective. I’ll be revealing the order, one by one, over the next few weeks, and to kick things off I wanted to explain some of my reasoning.

Number of appearances and goals scored in the case of strikers and midfielders (or assists in the case of Bruno Fernandes) play an important part. A member of the great Manchester United sides has a better chance of being placed high up than one who was in a less successful team. There are more stats and video evidence for contemporaries, and no evidence of xG for players of yore, other than the press cuttings and memories.

So, as I’ve only watched United with my own eyes since the 1980s, like any historian I have reverted to written sources (some 200 United books I own), plus thousands of newspaper cuttings. I also have nearly 40 years of interviews of my own to draw on, where I have spoken to players about players. They were published in magazines, newspapers or one of the 14 books I’ve written.

Some of the players hadn’t been interviewed for years and were delighted that I’d tracked them down. David Herd, a fantastic striker for United in the 1960s, ran a garage close to where I grew up in Manchester and had long been ‘forgotten’ by the media when I met him in the mid-1990s. He called a few weeks later, delighted that his grandchildren had been able to read about how good he was. Herd, though a brilliant striker, does not make the list.

I’ve tried to be fair. My uncle Charlie, one of United’s best players in Sir Matt Busby’s first great team, is also not there — along with many others from my ‘shortlist’ of 250 top footballers.

But I’ve also got some experience. In 1998, I worked on a panel for United’s official encyclopaedia and gave only nine players A-list status: George Best, Munich captain Roger Byrne, Eric Cantona, post-war captain Johnny Carey, Duncan Edwards, Mark Hughes, Denis Law, Bryan Robson and Peter Schmeichel.

How many of Bryan Robson, Denis Irwin, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Paddy Crerand make our list? (Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)

In 2004, fans voted for their best in an official book of the 100 greatest players. Eric Cantona was number one, followed by Best, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Bobby Charlton, Schmeichel, Law, Robson, Paul Scholes and David Beckham.

All greats, but clearly there was the distortion of some of these being more recent stars and works in progress; Cristiano Ronaldo was No 32 after a year at the club. Author David Meek, who covered United for 37 years after Munich, noted: “I was conscious that we were talking Manchester United history. Where were the likes of Billy Meredith, a remarkable Welsh winger whose league career covered 29 years and some 700 games?”

In 2005, I worked on the Manchester United Opus which gave, in my view, a considered list: Charlton was No 1, Best two, Keane three, followed by Edwards, Law, Robson, Cantona, Schmeichel and Scholes. But that was 21 years ago.

I’ve gone back to first principles, re-reading books, notes and interviews to try to establish some order. I went to bed one night vexed about who should be higher in the list out of Robson or Keane. I spoke to players off the record about who they rated as the best from their team-mates.

One, with over 250 United games to his name, just said: “Scholes. End of.”

That’s just his view. I have mine, and you’ll have yours. I hope you enjoy reading, whether you agree or not.

You can read the first article here, which reveals the man who is No 25 on my list. He is also the only current player to make the cut.