United received £80 million from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo and many expected Ferguson to spend it all on a couple of world class players. The likes of David Villa, Franck Ribery and Sergio Aguero were frequently mentioned alongside pretty much every other ‘potential star’ in the world.

Ferguson has so far resisted splashing out and has brought in just one player ready for first team football in winger Antonio Valencia. Many suspect Ferguson hasn’t gone anywhere near far enough to plug the gap left by Ronaldo but Ferguson is looking for improvement and he believes he has everything he needs already.

“We have had to replace good players time and time again,” he said. “Sometimes you do it because players get older, sometimes they move on for different reasons or because I might want to change the shape of the team. The important thing is not to get too upset because this club can produce players all the time.

“We are always searching to improve ourselves, but this time the improvement will come from within, definitely.

“The area I am most encouraged by is the young players, numbers-wise we have quite a load of them.

“Federico Macheda and Danny Welbeck are developing very well. We also have the Da Silva brothers and we think Darron Gibson is going to be a top player because he has come on fantastically well. Then you have Nani and Anderson who are only 22 and 21.”

Thankfully that is not a view shared by the players themselves with Patrice Evra the latest to claim United can still compete on all fronts.

“They (Ronaldo and Tevez) are two big players, but the star of the team is the team” he said. “Two players alone do not make a team. We have signed some good players and, like I say, Manchester United are a team and not only about two players.

“I can already see a good team coming along and we are all confident about doing well with this side as it is. We worked really well in Asia and played some good games, it was a good trip.

“We are moving along bit by bit in preparation for our first match of the season on August 9 against Chelsea (Community Shield). We want to at least defend the titles we won last season and try to win the Champions League.”

Manchester United could have been the first team in history to win five trophies in one season as well as being the first team to successfully defend the crown of European Champions. Six weeks ago, United were on course for an unprecedented quintuple. And now, before the FA Cup has even been decided, our season is over and we’ve finished with three trophies. (I’m ignoring the Charity Shield)

Today, we have two choices. We can take United’s domestic and World success and congratulate the team on a job well done or we can look at the team’s recent performances and rightly ask questions about the future of this so called “young team”.

If you’re happy with the former, you should probably stop reading now. We won the league, rock on!

In Wednesday’s Champions League semi final, the average age of United’s starting eleven was 28. One year older than that of our opponents Barcelona and yet Ferguson still claimed the team was young and would learn. Whilst all United players will certainly learn from Wednesday’s loss, it is naïve to suggest youth played any part in the defeat.

Anderson was United’s youngest player on the park at 21, but when he was replaced a half time, the role of most youthful player on the park fell to Wayne Rooney who, at the age of 23 and with over 200 United appearances to his name, can hardly be described as inexperienced.

As Alex Ferguson rightly pointed out, “we were beaten by a better team” on Wednesday night but rather than simply accept that; surely we have to ask why?

Statistics will paint a false image of our season. Finishing the Premier League as Champions with 90 points looks impressive and the fact we equalled the country’s all time top flight victories should make it more so. But it doesn’t.

Only three times in our history have United surpassed the 90 points mark in the Premier League with our highest ever total being 92, achieved in the 93/94 season.

Still, the stats are not a true reflection and it’s hard to be happy with our haul this season – especially when we had so much in our grasp only six weeks ago.

Liverpool pushed United close in this season’s Premier League race and whilst it’s hard to imagine the Dippers as real title challengers; this season, it almost became a reality.

Chelsea had to cope with a managerial change mid season and Arsenal surprisingly lost five games in their opening dozen leaving Liverpool with a real opportunity to stake a claim on the title. Fantasy is a million miles from reality though and Liverpool never really had enough to steal top spot from United and finished second.

Next season, I’d bet on both Arsenal and Chelsea to finish above the Dippers and I reckon you’d get good odds on that happening. It also means the race for first will be more fiercely contested. Will United be up for the challenge? No-one has ever won four Premier League trophies back to back. Bring it on.

Ignoring our (undeserved) impressive statistics, United never really looked themselves ever since the home victory against Inter Milan. United cruised to a 2 – 0 victory that evening but the manor of the performance seemed lazy and ever since then, winning looked more like a chore than a formality.

By this point, getting to the line was all that mattered in the league and rightly so. United managed to cruise over it with a game to spare but in the Champions League they had no such luck.

It was a scared or tired team that turned up to play Barcelona in the final. Given the team had been given a decent rest before the game; I can only conclude it was the former.

United started well, playing nine minutes of great football, but Barcelona scored from their first attack and from then it was men versus boys. Barcelona on the ascendency and United on the slide. We lost the game through two sloppy goals but the old adage comes true; you can’t complain about losing if you don’t score a goal.

After the game, a clearly upset Ferguson said “we’ll be better next year” but if you look at the current squad, to push further forward will require some tough decisions.

Whilst hard work is an attribute widely appreciated amongst the Red Devil faithful, without the talent to back it up, surely it’s only a matter of time before the gig is up?

John O’Shea was handed the job at right back after an apparently impressive season covering the same position whilst one can only assume Ji-Sung Park was given a start for his tireless energy. Both of these players have been incredible servants to the club but are they really of Manchester United quality? Yes they do a job, but do they have quality? I think it’s clear they don’t. Not at the level we need anyway.

Strong and steady will win the Premiership race nine times out of ten. Strong, steady and sexy will win the lot. Next season, it’s time to bring back the sexy…

On the surface this seems like great news for the club but if you dig a little deeper you’ll see that although it’s reassuring to hear Ronaldo wants to stay; right now, his words are worthless.

Cristiano Ronaldo has served two years of his current five year contract. The winger has just one year left in his “protected period” meaning come next summer, he will be able to buy himself out of the remainder of his contract. He will of course have to pay the club compensation but compared to the transfer fee Ronaldo would command the word pittance springs to mind.

Under FIFA rules, a player may break a contract after a given number of years; currently three years for players under 28 at the point of signing and two years for those over.

Andy Webster was the first player to buy himself out of his contract when he moved from Hearts to Wigan in May 2007. Hearts had been trying to sell the player for £5 million but ended up with compensation of just £625,000.

David Gill will be well aware of this fact and a contract for his superstar player will be priority number one this summer. If Ronaldo really wants to stay at United, then this summer is crunch time. The Winger simply HAS to sign a contract extension or the club run the serious risk of losing the player for a paltry sum in the near future. If the club can’t tie him down, perhaps they’ll have no option but to let him go?

To force a move in such a way would be a show of utter disrespect from Ronaldo towards the club and teammates that have nurtured his talent and supported him through thick and thin. I’d like to think he’d never do something like that to our great club but when you’re talking about a £50+ million asset, surely you can’t take any chances?

Coming into the game with a 1-0 lead, a goal for the visitors would leave Arsenal the unenviable task of needing three to get through and it didn’t take long to happen. Just under 8 minutes in fact.

From a Cristiano Ronaldo cut-back, young Kieran Gibbs slipped leaving Ji-Sung Park free to fire passed Manuel Almunia. The home fans were stunned and the away contingent ecstatic.

A couple of minutes later, Robin van Persie clattered into Cristiano Ronaldo a little over 45 yards from goal. The angle didn’t look great but Ronaldo had a look and fancied his chances. He lined the shot up, took his step back and struck that ball so sweetly that it dipped and curled all the way into the back of the net.

As a goalkeeper, it has to be disappointing being beaten from such a distance but take nothing away from the free-kick; it was a peach.

Eleven minutes gone and effectively game over. There was no way they were going to score 4. Wenger knew it, the fans most certainly knew it but more importantly, the players knew it.

Resigned to defeat, Arsenal offered little going forward and it was only Almunia’s fingertips that kept the score at two nil coming in for the break.

Arsenal looked to push forward after the restart but were soon caught short.

Ronaldo led the break with a clever flick to Park before he was off charging towards goal. Park picked out Rooney to his left who came forward before laying it off to Ronaldo as he charged into the box. With his closest marker a foot away there was only one place this was going and Ronaldo smashed in his second of the night.

With only an hour of the match played, the stadium began to empty. The home fans had seen enough of this and streams of them headed to the exits.

There was to be no more goals for United but that didn’t mean the drama was over. In the 75th minute, Fabregas burst into the United box but before he got his shot away, Darren Fletcher managed to get a toe to the ball before bringing the Spaniard down. Referee Roberto Rosetti deemed the challenge a foul and Fletcher was off.

Replays clearly show Fletcher played the ball first but with no avenue for appeal, it looks as though Fletcher will miss the final.

From the resulting penalty, Robin van Persie dispatched clinically into the top corner making it 3-1 and the Arsenal fans that remained burst into a chorus of “four more, we only need four more”.

Four more were never coming though and the match ended 3-1. Chelsea play Barcelona tomorrow in the other semi-final with the teams locked at 0-0. I hope Barcelona win; that would be a great final.

Winning five trophies is the ultimate aim for everyone at United this season and whilst Ferguson thinks a clean sweep may be a step too far, Ronaldo is most certainly up for the challenge.

“We’re positive about all the competitions we’re involved in and we want to win them all,” he said.

“It would be great to achieve that.

“Last season we won the league and the European Cup, and this year we have the opportunity to do even better. We’ll continue working hard and we believe we can do this.”

Earlier in the week, Wayne Rooney was talking about United’s bid for an unprecedented quintupal and said:

“All the players are talking about what we can do because it has never been done before. It’s all we talk about at the moment – how good it would be if we could go all the way in every competition.

“There is a lot of determination now to do it.”

But in an age where money talks and United are somewhere in the region of £700 million in debt can we really be confident in what we’re hearing?

The emergence of City as a financial super power has once again thrown the transfer market into chaos and their £100 million+ bid for Kaka must be taken as a serious threat to any other club housing world class players. Kaka was not the only player on City’s shopping list and if their transfer kitty really is bottomless, is a bid for Ronaldo really that far away?

What is Ferguson Saying?

“Kaka is one of the top three players in the world and if he’s worth £100million, so are Lionel Messi and Ronaldo. You could argue Ronaldo is worth £120million because he is the World and European Player of the Year.

“But there is no chance the owners would want to sell him even if City came calling with £120million this summer. I am absolutely sure of it. They want him here even more than me. They are strong about that.”

So Ferguson is saying all the right things and I hope his faith in the Glazers doesn’t prove to be unfounded. But how about that £120 million offer? When Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim took over the reigns at City, he was quoted as saying €240 was an acceptable value for a player such as Ronaldo.

In September last year, €240 was the equivalent to about £136 million. The pound has taken a bit of a battering since then and in today’s economy is more like £217 million. That’s almost a third of United’s entire debt and possibly too big of a carrot to hang in front of the Glazers.

I said previously that I didn’t think Ronaldo would ever play for Manchester City and I still believe that. Doubts and “what if scenarios” are being to creep in but if Ferguson is right and Glazer is adamant on keeping him there is nothing to worry about.

But if he’s wrong and the club accept a bid could we really see Ronaldo playing at City next season? I still cant see it but if a bid is accepted, he’ll probably end up at Real and for a lot less than £200 million.

Ronaldo won both the Premier League and the Champions League with Manchester United last season scoring an impressive 42 goals along the way. He is also the first Premier League player to lift the award in it’s 18 year history.

The newly crowned World Player of the Year has dominated at the award ceremonies of late and has taken a clean sweep of all the major individual awards; he has already won the Football Writers’ Player of the Year award, the PFA Player of the Year award, the Golden Boot, the Ballon d’Or and the FifPro World Player of the Year award.

“It is an overwhelming moment for me, a very special moment,” Ronaldo said in an emotional acceptance speech. “I would like to say to my mother and my sister; you can set off the fireworks now. I want to thank my friends, my family and my teammates. This is one of the most important moments of my life. I hope I can come back.”

The award, which was presented by footballing legend Pele, is decided by the votes of international captains and coaches. Ronaldo received 935 votes ahead of second-place Lionel Messi, with 678 and Fernando Torres finished third with 203.

Ronaldo was also keen to highlight the importance of Sir Alex Ferguson as a factor which contributed to his amazing success. He said: “Sir Alex has had an important role to play in my life. Last season was a great one from me, my club, and the bus was important to me because I learned a lot from him. His immense experience, after so many years, is of paramount importance and to me it’s a privilege to be able to be part of the history of such a big club as United. Without Sir Alex and Luiz Felipe Scolari I wouldn’t be here today.”

England manager Fabio Capello voted for Ronaldo to win with Messi second and Torres third; a popular vote appears. England captain John Terry however, thought Xavi was the best player in the world with Torres in second and Ronaldo third. Sour grapes anyone?

A club spokesman said “He’s fine and is training as normal with the team this morning.”

Ronaldo was spoken to at the scene by police officers and a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police confirmed that inquires as to what happened are ongoing.

Jody Lomax, who was driving behind Ronaldo at the time of the crash, described what happened:

“The Ferrari went straight into the wall, his front left-hand wheel came off and then Ronaldo got out of the car, I was shocked. Anyway he was all right, he was walking – he was a bit shaken.”

Ronaldo recently scooped the prestigious Ballon d’Or award after an impressive 2007/08 campaign saw the Portugese star score 42 goals and equalling the Premier League goal scoring record (31 goals) in a 38 game season.

Five players are shortlisted for the award and Ronaldo will have to beat off strong competition from Lionel Messi, Kaka, Fernando Torres and Xavi to scoop yet another award. This is the first year in which five players, rather than three, have been shortlisted. Coaches and team captains from around the world were asked to choose their top player to produce the list.