Paul Scholes has expressed fear that Manchester United will descend into long-term decline unless rapid action is taken to strengthen their faltering team.
The former Red Devils midfielder emerged from the 'Class of 92' to play a key role in United's successes over the next two decades.
And Scholes is concerned that United will find it just as tough as Liverpool have to get back to the top, should they leave it too late to cure the team's current ills.
A home defeat to Swansea on the opening day of the Premier League campaign suggested new manager Louis van Gaal has plenty of work to do in order to improve even on last season's miserable performance, when United trailed in seventh in the top flight.
Scholes claims he was asked last season, when working on the Old Trafford coaching staff, whether United should move for Cesc Fabregas or Toni Kroos over the summer.
In the end, Fabregas left Barcelona for Chelsea and Kroos departed Bayern Munich for Real Madrid.
It is not known whether United made a formal offer for either midfield player.
"Either way," said Scholes, in his Independent column, "the situation now, with 11 days of the transfer window left, has become ever more desperate for my former club. They have to sign some quality players.
"I am scared for United. Genuinely scared that they could go into the wilderness in the same way that Liverpool did in the 1990s."
He added: "What do United need? Five players. Not five players with potential. Five experienced players... for now. Five proper players who can hit the ground running and turn around a situation that looks desperate.
"United's forwards are as good as any team in the league. The problem is what comes behind them."
Scholes identified the Real Madrid quartet of Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira, Raphael Varane and Angel Di Maria as players he would target, along with Borussia Dortmund and Germany centre-back Mats Hummels.
Insisting United's chief executive should take the initiative, Scholes added: "Ed Woodward keeps telling us that the money is there. I would say that now is the time to start spending it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article