Gary Neville put forward a persuasive argument after Manchester United’s defeat at Chelsea for evolution rather than revolution at Old Trafford.
Three or four new players was the estimate he made for the rebuilding job facing David Moyes.
They couldn’t be that bad a team if they just won the Premier League comfortably a few months earlier, and gutting the side would do more harm than good, would just about sum up his position.
It took three days and one penalty shoot-out for that theory to be taken apart.
This is a team with few United quality footballers in it, and even fewer leaders of men.
Signing Juan Mata will start to address the first bit (though a player for Wayne Rooney’s position when Wayne Rooney has been the star man wouldn’t be my priority).
The leadership bit may be even tougher. Who does Moyes turn to for that?
Captain Vidic was self-indulgent when he got himself red carded at Chelsea and will probably be off in the summer, vice-captain Patrice Evra doesn’t event warrant his place in the team, the same can be said of former captains Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs, while skipping a generation to the likes of Phil Jones or Chris Smalling is never going to be an option.
Wayne Rooney is rumoured to have been offered the job as part of the package put together for a new deal.
He’s played the United money men like a fiddle over the last few years – taking the huff, threatening to quit and then earning himself a whopping pay rise.
Credit to Rooney and his agent for sensing when the club has been at its most vulnerable again, but it’s not the sort of DNA captains are made of.
And what will happen if Mata steals his thunder over the next few weeks, as Robin van Persie did last season? Will we start to hear noises of discontentment once more?
The only man to emerge from the Sunderland debacle with his reputation enhanced was Darren Fletcher, and Moyes should be giving him the captain’s armband for keeps, not Rooney.
He’s good enough to hold down a position in the United team, he’s earned the respect of the dressing room and the football community as a whole with his battle back from illness, and nobody is more qualified to lead a side on its knees than Fletcher. He’s Scotland captain, after all.