After Abramovich, Glazer has been projected as the latest foreign threat to English football

The news about the Premiership football club was disturbing. All the talk was of its new mysterious, foreign owner. Adjectives such as “sinister”, “shadowy” and “reclusive” were being muttered. Previous business deals were minutely scrutinised; there were grumbles about “bandit capitalism”.

Tony Banks, the former sports minister, spoke for the club’s millions of worried fans. “I want to know if this individual is a fit and proper person to be taking over a club,” he demanded. “Until that question is answered, the jury is out.”

Nothing was free of suspicion. Even the new man’s choice for his favourite film ? the violent Pulp Fiction ? was used against him in hushed, fearful tones.

This chorus of concern was not last week but two years ago. The club was not Manchester United but Chelsea.

This was not Old Trafford, May 2005. It was Stamford Bridge, July 2003. The club was Chelsea. The new man was Roman Abramovich, the Russian oil billionaire.

Yet, less than two years after that supposedly alarming take-over, Chelsea will play Newcastle as league champions for the first time in 50 years.

Thanks in no small measure to players bought with the billions provided by the then-derided, now-much-loved Mr Abramovich, they have amassed 94 points this season ? a Premiership record.

When they secured the Premiership with a 2-0 win over Bolton last month, the players sprayed their Russian owner with champagne and the fans roared their approval of the man once dubbed “the shadowy oligarch”.

Last week, myriad football commentators ? some of whom had two years ago raised their concerns about the mysterious foreigner ? acclaimed Mr Abramovich’s “credibility” and pointed to the debt of gratitude owed to him by “Chelski”.

At the same time, however, they used their columns to brand Mr Glazer “the American predator” and “arch-profiteer”.

While Mr Abramovich basked in glory, Mr Glazer was painted as the latest foreign threat to the English national game.

But is the 76-year-old really the devil in disguise?

Will he, as some fans have predicted, sound the death-knell of the world’s best-supported club? Or will the headlines in two years’ time make a mockery of last week’s hysteria?

Stung by the backlash against him, Mr Glazer hired armed bodyguards and tried a charm offensive. In a statement his son Joel, 36, declared: “We are long-term sports investors and avid Manchester United fans.” An advisor told selected journalists not to worry about ticket prices and promised that at least ?20 million a year for at least five years would be spent on buying players.

He also pointed to Mr Glazer’s record as a sports club owner on the other side of the Atlantic, especially the way he revitalised the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football team.

The scale of the opposition to the American’s take-over showed no signs of abating.

Even the government was attempting to cash in on the concerns. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that ministers are proposing changes to the law to prevent future “hostile” take-overs of Premiership Plc. clubs.

In the end, though, what will matter are results.

If Glazer can find a way to get raise Manchester United back to the heights they enjoyed as a right a few years ago ? finishing a distant third in the Premiership, and losing three times to Chelsea this season has been an embarrassment for a club used to glory ? then he will become as much a hero as Abramovich is now.

And success on the pitch would result in success with the bank balance.

The irrepressible Tony Banks, whose peerage was announced last week, was still happy to provide his opinion. “As a football fan, I am not happy with what I am seeing at Manchester United,” he said Friday.

But hadn’t Mr Banks, a fervent Chelsea supporter, now changed his mind about that other foreign football owner he once expressed concerns about? How were things with that worrying Russian oligarch Mr Abramovich these days?

Mr Banks confessed he had last seen him on Tuesday, in the Old Trafford board room, after watching Chelsea beat Manchester United 3-1 to set their Premiership points record.

“I said, ‘Roman, what a fantastic season. Thank you very much for everything you have done for Chelsea.’ He has been absolutely brilliant.”