10 Incredible Premier League "What Ifs"

Sir Alex Ferguson's decision to retire after the 2012/13 campaign shocked the footballing world and no-one more so than his squad of players - especially the newly arrived Robin Van Persie who spent just one season with the Scotsman despite assurances he would be sticking around for a little while longer.

Ferguson's legacy is unquestionably superb and one of the keys to the success he enjoyed was his ability to overhaul a squad and rebuild it with youth and a couple of shrewd signings. At least three times Ferguson took the decision to clear out his squad and restructure it but had he decided to go on for another year, it was the squad that would be destined to let him down.

Looking at the team United finished the 12/13 season with, it's safe to say that the days of the superstars had long since passed with only Wayne Rooney, Robin Van Persie and David De Gea standing out as being potentially 'World Class'.

With this in mind, Ferguson would have been tasked with replacing his ageing centre back pairing of Ferdinand & Vidic along with the retired Paul Scholes, positively ancient Ryan Giggs and the rest of the squad made for woeful reading.

Anderson, Bebe, Nani, Evans, Welbeck, Jones, Cleverly, Kagawa, Buttner, Young and Nick Powell were all still on the wage bill at United and none of them were ever going to cut it - Ferguson would have had no choice but to utilise them and things would likely have gone in exactly the same way they did for David Moyes.

Maybe Fergie might've squeezed a Champion's League place but his reputation would have been tarnished forever.