I think you are looking at that with a completely tunnel vision.
A mixture of young and old works a treat. Man U's side still accommodated Scholes and Giggs last year, Ferdinand is no spring chicken, neither is Evra.
5m is not a lot of money if he lasts 2-3 years.
What's wrong with having a few older heads in, whilst the likes of Barkley, Stones, Duffy, Garbutt and Lundstram are coming through to provide some youth to the squad?
Stop with Manchester United comparison already ok? Other also do that and it does my head in.
Manchester United will be signing 20 million players again this summer. Ageing players in their squad will just be replaced by young, quality replacements. Its really that simple.
Where is the comparison with us? Where is the finance coming from to replace our ageing squad? Please tell me because I haven't got the first clue.
Actually I do have a clue, Baines, Fellaini and Ross Barkley.
Baines was signed at 23 years of age, we've have years of damn good service from him, and now we could potentially sell him for a huge profit to fund more rebuilding.
Fellaini was signed at 21 years of age, 4 years good service and again he could be sold at a good profit to fund more rebuilding.
Arteta was signed at 23 years of age, 7 years good service and sold for 10. See where I'm going with this?
We are a club now, that sells to buy. Unfortunately, the key players in our squad are getting to the age where they'll need to be replaced in the next few years, and they won't fetch any substantial transfer fee which can be re-invested to replace them.
That's a major problem.
Remember what happened last summer? It looked for all the world like our only signing was going to be Naismith on a free transfer, because as we all know, we don't have a pot to piss in.
Cue a 12 million bid for Jack Rodwell and off he goes. Moyes then uses the cash and brings in Kevin Mirallas.
But what happens if there's nobody left with any real value to sell? Where does the money come from for transfers then?
If we are going to bring in 30 year old players for 5 million, we better seriously hope the academy brings through more Rodwell's, Barkleys and Rooneys because we're going to need them!
