Did the rot set in when Ronaldo left?

padzilla

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I mean in terms of how shambolic our recruitment has been ever since. We sold the best player in the world and invested the money that season in Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan. Look at a comparable moment now for Barcelona who sold Neymar but have invested the money in Ousmane Dembele and Coutinho...
 

Green_Red

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What rot, we're feckin second in the league and still in the CL. What more do you want?
 

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I believe so, yes. We didn't improve the team enough between 2009 and when Fergie retired. I made the point here too.

2009-2013 is the biggest factor in creating the black hole that we're only just crawling out of nigh on 5 years later. We just didn't improve the side enough and it took its toll once Fergie left.

In the 2007 window we invested heavily to improve a youthful side already growing from strength to strength. Nani, Anderson, Tevez and Hargreaves went into an already excellent team that had beaten Jose's Chelsea to the league. We didn't allow ourselves to be caught, and improved further.

With the 2009 window, it became clear that more was needed. Ronaldo and Tevez out, and we turned our nose up at buying Madrid's rejects. Probably because at that time we could legitimately say we were their equal, why would we take their cast offs? By the time we signed Di Maria out of desperation it wasn't even a consideration. It was still a great side from memory, Rafael looked every bit like Neville's successor, Rio and Vidic were still as strong as ever, Scholes and Giggs weren't slowing down, Anderson had a great first season and looked somewhat arsed, while Nani hadn't yet made everyone wonder whether he'd been swapped for a lookalike in about 2012.

But it was still lacking something. Goals, namely. Ronaldo scored 42 in 2007/08 and 26 the following year, while Tevez got 19 and 15 respectively. That's a big hit to take, especially when you plan on replacing these players with a hard working but goal shy winger and Michael Owen. This persisted during the 2011 window where we only sought to improve the team by buying another hard working but goal shy winger and a promising centre half. De Gea was to replace the outgoing Van Der Sar. So already it becomes clear we haven't really improved the first team since 2008 with the Berbatov signing.

2012 we again refused to buy a midfielder, relying on Carrick and Cleverley in midfield, with the same hard working wingers and the same ageing defence. We even brought Scholes out of retirement. The brilliance of Sir Alex got us over the line each time, if not it got us fecking close. We only finished a point behind the top team once from 2007-2013. The man was a genius. He papered over the cracks of a team that hadn't been improved for 5 years, and when that genius was no longer there we suddenly found a team that needed vast investment to even bring it up to scratch. Things are looking promising again, but I can't help but feel the value mantra cost us big time when looking at the last 4 years.
 

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We messed up in the few years at the end of Fergie’s reign by losing out in the race for the best young players in world football. DDG is the one exception and look how he turned out. If you look at those years and who was signed by the best teams in Europe, and then us. It’s where the gap basically started. Hazard, Aguero, KDB originally by Chelsea, City even had Boateng at one point.

This was then exasperateds by the panic under LvG/Moyes.
 

haram

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We had quality players but they started to fade... look at Evra, Rio, Vidic, Rooney, Carrick, Scholes etc. Sir Alex even added van Persie near the end to take the title. Moyes and van Gaal did terrible jobs of the transition. Van Gaal was a complete joke with his signings.

Ideally we needed to also snag a Hazard or someone of that ilk and age whilst Fergie was here. He did try, but what can you do.
 

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Rot? Weren't we still highly competitive in the years post Ronaldo? In Fergie's last season we could have gone all the way in the Champions League if the ref hadn't sent Nani off against Madrid.

Just because the likes of Obertan didn't hit the peaks of Ronaldo, doesn't mean a rot set in.
 

padzilla

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That comment says everything I need to know...
It certainly does. We appear to have deserted the standards set by Alex Ferguson and a large swathe of our support feels that merely finishing in the top four is good enough for this club. We are another few barren years away from becoming the new scousers.
 

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Blah blah blah blah

Why can’t you guys use the existing thread that did this to death a couple of weeks ago rather than recycling the same old argument again
 

golden_blunder

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It certainly does. We appear to have deserted the standards set by Alex Ferguson and a large swathe of our support feels that merely finishing in the top four is good enough for this club. We are another few barren years away from becoming the new scousers.
My only reply in this thread before it gets locked (see above)

I think a lot of fans, particularly new fans from the PL era have an unrealistic expectation that united should win everything every season. Spoilt by Fergie.

Football has shown us that success happens in cycles. It’s citys turn but things can change quickly if pep were to leave for example. It’s up to the challenging pack to be ready to fill the void when that happens.

Mmmmkay?
 

KM

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I mean in terms of how shambolic our recruitment has been ever since. We sold the best player in the world and invested the money that season in Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan. Look at a comparable moment now for Barcelona who sold Neymar but have invested the money in Ousmane Dembele and Coutinho...
I too read that F365 article.
 

James Peril

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First in the league? We are Manchester United after all...
The advantages we had during the 90’s and 00’s disappeared instantly when other clubs found some money to spend.
Oil money beats money earned by your own success, it’s the nature of it all. The funny thing is that all the other clubs are enjoying the TV-deals singlehandedly created by United’s success and global affection the last 20 years.

Be happy with what happened, winning the league is not a godgiven right anymore. I think most United-fans will benefit from this little slump, we get new ambitions and really enjoy winning the league the next time it happens. We followed a receipe during Ferguson and tried to extend it, which is a very common and natural mistake to do when you are successful. Now we’re hungry again - it hopefully leads to better decisions.

All is not that bad is it? Two trophies last season and second in the league, still in the CL and FA Cup. Look at what Spurs and Pool have filled their trophy cabinets with the last ten years and you see the difference, and they are supposed to be at their best since forever.
 

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Appointing Moyes was what set us back years. He wasn't a coach who.had a proven track record of signing rough diamonds and turning them into superstars as managers like Klopp, Pochettino, Fergie, Pep and to a lesser degree Mourinho and Conte have/had shown.
The Van Gaal appointment turned out to be equally as damaging. A footballing charlatan who.was made look world class at the Brazil world cup by a frighteningly on form Robben and Van Persie.
 

Green_Red

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It certainly does. We appear to have deserted the standards set by Alex Ferguson and a large swathe of our support feels that merely finishing in the top four is good enough for this club. We are another few barren years away from becoming the new scousers.
So, if the rot started in 08 when Ronaldo left and Ferguson retired in 13, who exactly do you think is responsible for the rot? And, clarify what the standards Ferguson set were other than being successful, because if you watched United from 10 to 13 we played some absolute shite football. Did you watch?
 

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We reached the Champions League final and won the league 3 more times.

What I wouldn't give for that rot now.
 

Green_Red

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The advantages we had during the 90’s and 00’s disappeared instantly when other clubs found some money to spend.
Oil money beats money earned by your own success, it’s the nature of it all. The funny thing is that all the other clubs are enjoying the TV-deals singlehandedly created by United’s success and global affection the last 20 years.

Be happy with what happened, winning the league is not a godgiven right anymore. I think most United-fans will benefit from this little slump, we get new ambitions and really enjoy winning the league the next time it happens. We followed a receipe during Ferguson and tried to extend it, which is a very common and natural mistake to do when you are successful. Now we’re hungry again - it hopefully leads to better decisions.

All is not that bad is it? Two trophies last season and second in the league, still in the CL and FA Cup. Look at what Spurs and Pool have filled their trophy cabinets with the last ten years and you see the difference, and they are supposed to be at their best since forever.
I used to think even when we were dominating United fans never took winning it for granted and never assumed we would. How times have changed with the twits (twitter generation)...
 

DdeGoat

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Rot is a strong word and I wouldn't call it that. We won two titles after Ronaldo left and made it to the Champions league final in one of the seasons. However, I do think that our slow decline started around the time. And it wasn't only because we failed to replace Ronaldo adequately, it was also our inability to find a proper central midfielder to take over from Scholes and have a settled defense.

People can call it a title winning team all they want but our team wasn't top notch when Sir Alex retired. The central defenders Sir Alex bought (or brought up from the academy) failed to properly take over from Rio and Vidic. Jones, Smalling and Evans, though talented, were also blighted by injuries and failed to form a central defensive partnership that we had been used to till then and built our success around under Sir Alex all those years.

Evra was on a permanent decline and his back-up was one of the bigger clowns we have had at this club. Buttner I bet still cannot believe that he lined up for Manchester United at one point in his life. Rafael, as talented as he was, was still injury prone. We could hardly ever field a consistent back four because of all these talented but injury prone players at the club.

Sir Alex did try to strengthen central midfield but was mostly unsuccessful. Carrick was the last successful player he bought for the position. Anderson, Hargreaves, Gibson, Cleverley - all proved to be major disappointments. Fletcher had the misfortune of suffering from a debilitating illness.

Our wingers, Nani and Valencia, showed early promise and were brilliant in 2010-11 season (if I am not mistaken) but failed to show the consistency and quality needed. Young was a disappointment too. Certainly not someone who helped us compete with prime Barcelona. Rooney was clocking miles and despite his productivity his overall play wasn't up to the scratch in this decade.

The last title we won was solely due to Sir Alex's brilliance and sheer will. He extracted the last ounce of juice from his older, experienced players and made a brilliant purchase in Van Persie to get us the all important goals. I don't think any manager in the world, not even Jose, could have come in and won the title with the squad Sir Alex left.

Moyes was not wrong when he said that this team needed 5 or 6 quality players before it could compete for the title again. I think the club also realized that and were ready to spend money to augment the squad. Fabregas, Kroos, Bale - we were targeting the right profile of players. The only problem was that Moyes was so dull and uninspiring that no top player wanted to come and play for him. Only two players he could get were Fellaini and Mata, not game changers we needed at that time.

Van Gaal had the confidence and the charisma, but his dealing in the transfer market were atrocious. He would get a player and then discard him for not fitting his system, instead of targeting players to fit his supposed brilliant system. In all shit dealings, we did find a good player in Martial and he gave Rashford is debut. The only two positives from his reign in terms of squad improvements.

With Jose, imo, we finally started to improve our squad. Our central midfield has improved leaps and bounds with the addition of Pogba and Matic. Lukaku despite his flaws is the best striker at this club since Van Persie. Bailly, if he can stay fit, can be our central defender for a decade. Some of the buys like Mkhi and Lindelof have been disappointments but still we do look a lot better than we have in any time since Sir Alex left. That is the reason I am patient with Jose. He is not my ideal Manchester United manager but he is a manager who goes to desperate big clubs in decline and gets them winning again. I am quietly confident that he'll improve the squad further with his buys this January and in the summer.
 

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Nah it set it when United decided on a creature from Lord of the Rings as Fergie's successor.
 

GavinJames

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“Rot” :lol::lol:

We won the league by a long way in SAFs final season ffs :lol::lol:
Actually we won the league twice since Ronaldo left (2011,2013) so we won the league twice in 9 years since he left if you include this season, which is not good reading really.
 

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We spend a lot of money, we have just spent it very poorly and had no succession plan for SAF, a manager unlike any other, who had total control of football matters at the club. Two poor managerial appointments and three seasons of poor choices in the transfer market did not pave the way for instant success under Mourinho. The progress he has made is undeniable, but thinking we are entitled to instant success because 'we're Manchester United' is an idiotic attitude. Accusing fans of settling for mediocrity is also idiotic. Success will take time and planning, Man City have been working on their current squad for at least 5-years, we've been shaping ours for 2. There is no rot, it has nothing to do with Ronaldo, it will take time, there is clear progress and entitlement will get you nowhere.

Please stop.
 

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We reached the Champions League final and won the league 3 more times.

What I wouldn't give for that rot now.
I don't think OP is necessarily on about immediate success. After all, the players that made us so successful between 06-09 were still at or around their peak. I think his and my issue is with recruitment around that time, which meant that when those players did eventually decline there wasn't anyone to take over. Remove Fergie as well and you have a rudderless team low on quality like the one Jose inherited.
 

haram

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Rot is a strong word and I wouldn't call it that. We won two titles after Ronaldo left and made it to the Champions league final in one of the seasons. However, I do think that our slow decline started around the time. And it wasn't only because we failed to replace Ronaldo adequately, it was also our inability to find a proper central midfielder to take over from Scholes and have a settled defense.

People can call it a title winning team all they want but our team wasn't top notch when Sir Alex retired. The central defenders Sir Alex bought (or brought up from the academy) failed to properly take over from Rio and Vidic. Jones, Smalling and Evans, though talented, were also blighted by injuries and failed to form a central defensive partnership that we had been used to till then and built our success around under Sir Alex all those years.

Evra was on a permanent decline and his back-up was one of the bigger clowns we have had at this club. Buttner I bet still cannot believe that he lined up for Manchester United at one point in his life. Rafael, as talented as he was, was still injury prone. We could hardly ever field a consistent back four because of all these talented but injury prone players at the club.

Sir Alex did try to strengthen central midfield but was mostly unsuccessful. Carrick was the last successful player he bought for the position. Anderson, Hargreaves, Gibson, Cleverley - all proved to be major disappointments. Fletcher had the misfortune of suffering from a debilitating illness.

Our wingers, Nani and Valencia, showed early promise and were brilliant in 2010-11 season (if I am not mistaken) but failed to show the consistency and quality needed. Young was a disappointment too. Certainly not someone who helped us compete with prime Barcelona. Rooney was clocking miles and despite his productivity his overall play wasn't up to the scratch in this decade.

The last title we won was solely due to Sir Alex's brilliance and sheer will. He extracted the last ounce of juice from his older, experienced players and made a brilliant purchase in Van Persie to get us the all important goals. I don't think any manager in the world, not even Jose, could have come in and won the title with the squad Sir Alex left.

Moyes was not wrong when he said that this team needed 5 or 6 quality players before it could compete for the title again. I think the club also realized that and were ready to spend money to augment the squad. Fabregas, Kroos, Bale - we were targeting the right profile of players. The only problem was that Moyes was so dull and uninspiring that no top player wanted to come and play for him. Only two players he could get were Fellaini and Mata, not game changers we needed at that time.

Van Gaal had the confidence and the charisma, but his dealing in the transfer market were atrocious. He would get a player and then discard him for not fitting his system, instead of targeting players to fit his supposed brilliant system. In all shit dealings, we did find a good player in Martial and he gave Rashford is debut. The only two positives from his reign in terms of squad improvements.

With Jose, imo, we finally started to improve our squad. Our central midfield has improved leaps and bounds with the addition of Pogba and Matic. Lukaku despite his flaws is the best striker at this club since Van Persie. Bailly, if he can stay fit, can be our central defender for a decade. Some of the buys like Mkhi and Lindelof have been disappointments but still we do look a lot better than we have in any time since Sir Alex left. That is the reason I am patient with Jose. He is not my ideal Manchester United manager but he is a manager who goes to desperate big clubs in decline and gets them winning again. I am quietly confident that he'll improve the squad further with his buys this January and in the summer.
Yeah, there was no real top continuity left in the squad when Fergie left. Would have been less of a problem if we could have secured Pogba and Hazard. He did leave us the best goalie on earth though!

Also, Chelsea and Arsenal will face similar problems when their managers leave. They aren’t spending enough and the younger prospects are of questionable quality. Certainly, Chelsea dont seem to give their younger players (Christensen aside) chances anyway. They haven’t really signed any top prospects either.

Arsenal will be a complete mess when Ozil and Sanchez leave. Even players like Wilshere and Ramsey are running out of contract. Their squad players are no good either.
 
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KirkDuyt

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What rot, we're feckin second in the league and still in the CL. What more do you want?
This is a bit short sighted imho. Yes there's improvement over Van Gaal, that's evident. But you can't say United is back where it's supposed to be. Come on now.
 

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There's no question that we stopped invested for a period of time

But we have now spent 100s and 100s of millions on players so the excuses are running out. Soon we the squad will have turned over 100% from when SAF was here
 

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The OP is right, as soon as Ronaldo left our football has become ''rotten''. The Zombie passing thread appeared during SAF era as well. We were still winning, but not being entertaining anymore. Our shambolic midfield was for blame as well. Our defence was awesome, so not much action there:boring:. Carrick,Fletcher,Young,Rooney,Park,Anderson, Gibson, Valencia were not flashy players. Old giggs was not running up and down any anymore. Only Nani, Berbatov and old Scholes added that Barcelona magic to our team.

SAF brought in his last season RvP and Kawaga, where we won the title, but also playing better to the eye thanks to the technical abilities of Robin.
 

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Flotation. Horses. Cracks (and SAF papering them over). Oil money. Good points made by posters in here. “Rot” was not to do with Ronaldo leaving, but to do with a series of choices by the board, some with the acquiescence of SAF. Things change anyway, it’s to do with managing or at least trying to influence the direction of change. Even at the end of his tenure, SAF’s football was looking dated; he could not compete long term with the European giants. And he could not/would not challenge the board with the need for major investment. It was his undoubted genius that maintained a high level of success despite all this. Other teams feared the legend. Big money still had not seen its full impact. In the dying days of his empire SAF virtually hypnotised his people into success; nonetheless the cracks were starting to show. His relationship with agents, his ways of dealing with players, his strategic approach were of a totally different bygone era. Rot, you might say. Shifting sands, might be another way of looking at it.
 

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We began to play WAY more like a team. I remember clearly that it was all "pass to Ronaldo when in doubt", but his departure definitely developed us as a team where more people took responsibility.
 

villain

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Ronaldo papered over a lot of cracks, the rot started much earlier.

We were slow to react to Chelsea's dominance in the early stages of the Roman era - they were beating us to signings, scoring amazing goals, and defending incredibly too.
They built a formiddable team instantly.
Their scouting was better, they bought much better players, their tactics seemed like a breath of fresh air - and every time we faced them I genuinely thought we would lose.

If we didn't have Ronaldo then I think we would have struggled to compete in the way we did.

By the time we left we were already far behind the likes of Bayern & Barcelona, it just compounded.
Since then we've made a few quick fixes (RvP for example) but we still seemingly don't have a long term plan in place, or any real strategy.
 

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I don't think Ronaldo leaving was as big a problem as losing a player as good as him should have been. Which is why we continued to dominate, domestically and in Europe, for the next few seasons after selling him to Madrid.

It was our inability to adequately replace Giggs and Scholes that really fecked us. It was crazy how dependent we were on them, even deep into their 30s. In Fergie's final few seasons it seemed that - unless Giggs or Scholes were involved - we were completely bereft of any guile or creativity. And that's persisted ever since.

Right now, it's all on Pogba. The first player worthy of taking up that mantle. Anderson, Kagawa, Mata, Mkhitaryan, Di Maria, Schweinsteiger. None of them have come up with the goods (Mata's come closest tbf) and we're still desperately short of real creativity and class in our midfield. Thank feck for Pogba really. Without him we're goosed.
 

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Ronaldo papered over a lot of cracks, the rot started much earlier.

We were slow to react to Chelsea's dominance in the early stages of the Roman era - they were beating us to signings, scoring amazing goals, and defending incredibly too.
They built a formiddable team instantly.
Their scouting was better, they bought much better players, their tactics seemed like a breath of fresh air - and every time we faced them I genuinely thought we would lose.

If we didn't have Ronaldo then I think we would have struggled to compete in the way we did.

By the time we left we were already far behind the likes of Bayern & Barcelona, it just compounded.
Since then we've made a few quick fixes (RvP for example) but we still seemingly don't have a long term plan in place, or any real strategy.
We had Rio, Vidic, Evra, Scholes, Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Carrick, VDS starting week in week out with talents like Nani, Hargreaves and Anderson warming the bench. Chelsea weren't better than us, forget about much better players.
 

villain

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We had Rio, Vidic, Evra, Scholes, Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Carrick, VDS starting week in week out with talents like Nani, Hargreaves and Anderson warming the bench. Chelsea weren't better than us, forget about much better players.
You're discussing two different teams than I am. I think the rot started from 2002 on wards personally.

I'm not entirely convinced our scouting has been as good as it should have been for a club our size, I think on average maybe 1/4 players were good enough for us long term.
We were still relying on Co92, RvN, Keane at the time, then we began relying on Co92, Rooney & Ronaldo to thelp get us to the place where we had Vidic, Evra, Tevez etc.

Compare that with what Chelsea were buying from 2004 on and seemingly every player formed part of their core almost immediately.
We were slow to react, and far too rigid in our scouting structure also.
 

wolvored

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The advantages we had during the 90’s and 00’s disappeared instantly when other clubs found some money to spend.
Oil money beats money earned by your own success, it’s the nature of it all. The funny thing is that all the other clubs are enjoying the TV-deals singlehandedly created by United’s success and global affection the last 20 years.

Be happy with what happened, winning the league is not a godgiven right anymore. I think most United-fans will benefit from this little slump, we get new ambitions and really enjoy winning the league the next time it happens. We followed a receipe during Ferguson and tried to extend it, which is a very common and natural mistake to do when you are successful. Now we’re hungry again - it hopefully leads to better decisions.

All is not that bad is it? Two trophies last season and second in the league, still in the CL and FA Cup. Look at what Spurs and Pool have filled their trophy cabinets with the last ten years and you see the difference, and they are supposed to be at their best since forever.
I agree. Where we once had to compete with Blackburn, over a couple of seasons, Newcastle, then Arsenal, we could mainly outspend them and keep winning the league. The game slowly changed when Chelsea got rich, and then City. The fact that all the other teams are now quite wealthy too due to tv and foreign owners, means that the standard of players they have had has also risen. The final nail in the coffin of us being top dog was Fergie leaving, and the dominance he had wont happen again to Utd.
 

roonster09

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You're discussing two different teams than I am. I think the rot started from 2002 on wards personally.

I'm not entirely convinced our scouting has been as good as it should have been for a club our size, I think on average maybe 1/4 players were good enough for us long term.
We were still relying on Co92, RvN, Keane at the time, then we began relying on Co92, Rooney & Ronaldo to thelp get us to the place where we had Vidic, Evra, Tevez etc.

Compare that with what Chelsea were buying from 2004 on and seemingly every player formed part of their core almost immediately.
We were slow to react, and far too rigid in our scouting structure also.
Chelsea also relied on Lampard, Terry and one or two other midfielders. Every team rely on their best players, like Barca relied on Messi, Madrid on Ronaldo.

2002 to 2006 was average seasons for us but from 2006-2009 we were as good as any team in Europe except the two winners of CL.

Our 2007-08 team alone had so many class players, it's hard to point a finger on a player and say there's the weakness in the team.

Obviously we started slow when Chelsea started winning league but with additions of Carrick, VDS, Evra we addressed weakness in the team and SAF banking on Ronaldo and Rooney paid superbly.
 

Zlatattack

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Rot? We won the league twice in the next 4 years. The team Fergie left won the league by 11 points. It was not his responsibility to plan for the next 10 years.