Of course the club have always spent heavily on bringing in the best talent, over the generations breaking the transfer record consistently to recruit the likes of Denis Law, Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney. But such investment has always been tempered by a keenness to promote from within. In every first-team squad for every match since 1936 there has been at least one homegrown player in the United line-up. It is an unbroken record that no other top-division club can match. And it is a tradition which, were it to be lost, would diminish the institution substantially. As Giggs was right to point out, there is nothing that excites a football crowd as much as seeing one of their own succeed.