Youll never win anything with kids Liverpool defender turned television pundit Alan Hansen has never lived down that quote, which was uttered in response to Sir Alexs decision to replace established outgoing players such as Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis, Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes with young up-and-coming players. At the start of the decade, youngster Ryan Giggs had broken into the first-team setup and he was followed in subsequent years by the likes of Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and both Gary and Phil Neville, who quickly and effectively fought their way into the first team, displacing many other established players such as Paul Parker and Brian McClair. The aforementioned six players were the core of the United team towards the end of the nineties and beginning of the noughties. Sir Alexs reliance on them was a gamble, but by God did it pay off. The promotion of youth players has remained important throughout the rest of Sir Alexs tenure, as players such as John OShea, Wes Brown and Darren Fletcher became important parts of the team around the turn of the Millennium. More recently, Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck have made the grade, though in one of Sir Alexs most notable blunders, a youth team defender by the name of Gerard Pique was deemed surplus to requirements at the end of the 2007/08 season... Nobodys perfect, I guess.