Liverpool icon Alan Hansen has again courted controversy by writing off the latest batch of Manchester United youngsters.
The Beckham group forced Hansen to eat his words when he declared "you can't win anything with kids", but the former Liverpool captain has made a new attack on United's youth system.
In his column for the Telegraph, Hansen wrote: "With Rooney still at Old Trafford, Ferguson can at least look to build a fifth great team, but it will be so much harder to do it this time than on any other occasion in the past.
"Ferguson might talk highly of the young players coming through the ranks, but if there are any likely to emulate the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and David Beckham, I don't see them.
"And having so many of his key players in their late thirties will be a major concern because Ferguson will have to build for the future without them.
"If you go back to the mid-1990s, when Ferguson promoted the likes of Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and the Nevilles, they were put into a team whose key players were in their twenties. And in Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Peter Schmeichel, United had three of the greatest players to grace the Premier League. Ferguson's next team will not have such quality to build upon.
"He also doesn't have the luxury of four great strikers, as he did with Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, during the Treble-winning season in 1999.
"Not so long ago, you looked at United's bench and that is what told you they were the team to beat. But if you compare the benches of United and Spurs during midweek, when they were on Champions League duty, Tottenham's was by far the strongest. Manchester City and Arsenal also have stronger squads.
"But Sir Alex has presided over the transfer strategy that has left United with the squad they have today, so when Rooney questions the quality of players being attracted to the club, the man responsible is Ferguson."