Reminds me of that Van Gaal season about 20 years ago when they were bottom half going into new year.
Think LVG got sacked, they got in Raddy Antic as caretaker, signed Edgar Davids and flew up the league. Then had the summer when they signed all of Ronaldinho, Etoo, Rafa Marquez, Deco, Edmilson and a few others.
Regardless of what young players are coming through they'll probably need to get that quality in again if they want to seriously challenge for CL in 2-3 years time so pretty daunting given their financial restrictions.