Manchester City had been one of the great surprises of the previous season.
During the first half of the campaign, they had drifted dangerously close to the relegation battle. Kevin Keegan's dismissal and Louis van Gaal's appointment changed everything.
The Dutchman imposed discipline almost immediately.
Yaya Touré strengthened the midfield.
Zlatan Ibrahimović transformed the attack.
Vincent Kompany added youth and physical presence to the defence.
Shay Given brought reliability in goal.
Together, those January signings gave Manchester City a much stronger spine.
Van Gaal was not satisfied.
In particular, he wanted more control in midfield.
Yaya Touré had been excellent since arriving from New Manchester United, but Van Gaal did not believe one dominant midfielder was enough for the type of football he intended to build.
Shaun Wright-Phillips was another issue.
Nobody doubted his pace or his ability to beat defenders, but Van Gaal had never been entirely convinced by his tactical discipline.
Throughout the second half of the season, rumours circulated that the winger had fallen out of favour.
Chelsea were among several clubs interested.
Ancelotti wanted another direct wide player capable of stretching opponents and attacking one against one.
Joe Cole offered intelligence and technique, but he was not the kind of winger who could repeatedly destroy a defensive line through sheer acceleration.
Ribéry and Messi would both have suited the requirement.
Neither was realistic.
New Manchester United had no intention of selling either player, and neither showed any desire to leave.
Messi in particular regarded Newton Heath as home.
Chelsea therefore turned towards Wright-Phillips.
Once Manchester City accepted that he could leave, the deal also helped Van Gaal address another position.
Wayne Bridge moved in the opposite direction as part of the negotiations, giving City an experienced left-back.
Kolo Touré's £25 million move from New Manchester United had already strengthened the other side of the defence.
Midfield, however, remained the centre of Van Gaal's reconstruction.
He had wanted Rafael van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder from the beginning.
Manchester City eventually secured both Ajax stars in a package deal.
The exact fee was never officially disclosed, although reports in the Netherlands and England suggested a combined figure of roughly €40 million.
Van Gaal knew both players extremely well.
Van der Vaart could operate between midfield and attack.
Sneijder offered passing range, shooting and creativity from deeper positions.
Combined with Yaya Touré, they gave City a technical foundation the team simply had not possessed a year earlier.
Then came Mark van Bommel.
The PSV captain had already announced that he would not sign a new contract in Eindhoven.
At twenty-eight, he considered himself at the peak of his career and wanted one major move.
Barcelona were interested.
So were Real Madrid, Lazio and AC Milan.
Manchester City entered the race publicly.
Frank Arnesen knew Van Bommel well from his work in Dutch football, while Van Gaal had no doubts about the midfielder's personality or tactical intelligence.
Within two days, the deal was effectively done.
Van Bommel chose Manchester City.
The wages made the decision considerably easier.
Reports suggested City had offered nearly twice what Barcelona were prepared to pay.
Rijkaard was irritated enough to criticise Manchester City's spending publicly, describing them as a club attempting to accelerate its way into the elite through money.
City ignored him.
They had no reason to do otherwise.
The next target was even more ambitious.
Patrick Vieira.
Van Gaal admired the Arsenal captain enormously and imagined a midfield built around Vieira, Yaya Touré and Van Bommel.
It would possess size, aggression, technique and defensive power in almost absurd quantities.
Whether Arsenal would sell was another question.
If Vieira proved impossible to obtain, City were prepared to look elsewhere.
Michael Ballack was one of the alternatives discussed.
The Bayern midfielder had no shortage of admirers himself.
Real Madrid wanted him.
Chelsea were interested.
Manchester United were monitoring him.
Barcelona had made enquiries.
Unlike Van Bommel, Ballack had options at clubs with far greater historical prestige than Manchester City.
City's answer was the same one they had used throughout the summer.
Money.
Nobody could be certain how far it would take them.
Van Bommel had already demonstrated what happened when Manchester City's financial power entered a negotiation.
Van Gaal also wanted another forward.
Arnesen publicly declared City's interest in Parma striker Alberto Gilardino, even though the Italian had made no secret of his preference for AC Milan.
Gilardino was one of the most highly rated young centre-forwards in Europe and had attracted attention from Chelsea and several other wealthy clubs.
Manchester City intended to make Milan work for him.
Adriano was an even more ambitious possibility.
The Brazilian had emerged as Inter's dominant attacking figure and was among the most coveted strikers in world football.
City made enquiries.
So did several other clubs.
Inter had already decided that Christian Vieri could leave, however, which made an Adriano sale extremely unlikely.
Manchester City's summer strategy was becoming clear.
They were willing to ask about almost anyone.
Newspapers naturally began linking them with New Manchester United's biggest names as well.
Kaká was mentioned.
Beckham was mentioned again.
Ethan gave little credibility to either story.
Van der Vaart and Sneijder had not joined City to sit on the bench.
Yaya Touré was already one of Van Gaal's most important players.
Van Bommel was clearly expected to play.
If Van Gaal wanted a five-man midfield, Ethan suspected the final place would go to another defensively powerful player rather than to Kaká or Beckham.
Both were extraordinary footballers.
Neither made much sense within the structure City were currently assembling.
Essien and De Rossi were more plausible targets.
Chelsea, among others, admired both.
It made no difference.
New Manchester United were not selling.
The players were not asking to leave.
There was nothing to discuss.
Mourinho's position that summer was simple.
Stability mattered more than recruitment.
He had spent the previous season refining the squad and establishing a tactical structure capable of winning the Champions League.
The last thing he wanted was to dismantle it immediately afterwards.
Large offers arrived anyway.
Chelsea enquired about several players.
Manchester City tried again.
Real Madrid tested New Manchester United's resolve on some of their stars.
The answer was almost always the same.
No.
While Manchester City dominated the transfer pages, Chelsea were noticeably quieter than they had been during the previous two summers.
Their first significant move was for Scott Sinclair, a sixteen-year-old winger from Bristol Rovers.
Sinclair's pace had already attracted considerable attention among scouts, and Chelsea regarded him as one of the most promising English attackers of his age.
At his presentation, Ancelotti used the signing to explain the club's longer-term direction.
"We already have a very strong first-team squad," he said. "The priority now is stability."
"We'll still strengthen when necessary, but we don't intend to build the club by spending heavily every summer forever."
"We want to develop more of our own players."
"Sinclair is part of that process."
Chelsea followed with another youth signing, bringing in a highly rated fourteen-year-old prospect from Reading's academy.
The message was obvious.
Abramovich's money would continue to matter, but Chelsea were beginning to invest much more seriously in their development system.
That did not mean they had stopped buying established players.
Ancelotti remained unhappy with Wayne Bridge, which was one reason he was allowed to join Manchester City.
Chelsea replaced him by signing Asier del Horno from Athletic Bilbao.
The Ashley Cole situation was more complicated.
The controversy surrounding Chelsea's unauthorised meeting with Cole had dragged on for months.
Arsenal had threatened legal action.
The Premier League eventually issued substantial fines against Chelsea, Ancelotti and Cole while warning that any future breach could bring sporting penalties as well as financial ones.
The message was clear.
Another incident could cost Chelsea points.
That prevented further private approaches.
It did not prevent Chelsea from negotiating directly with Arsenal.
By then, Wenger's relationship with Cole had deteriorated so badly that a transfer looked increasingly plausible.
The remaining issue was price.
Chelsea knew Arsenal were interested in William Gallas.
They therefore proposed a player-plus-cash deal, offering roughly €10 million along with the French defender.
Wenger had not yet given his answer.
Chelsea strengthened midfield as well.
Lassana Diarra arrived from Le Havre for around £5 million.
The young Frenchman was already being compared with Claude Makélélé because of his size, defensive instincts and ability to protect the back four.
Wright-Phillips was added from Manchester City.
For a club supposedly moving away from aggressive recruitment, Chelsea were still doing a fair amount of business.
Manchester United's summer looked very different.
Their biggest off-field announcement was a rise in ticket prices.
On the football side, Ferguson moved to solve the goalkeeping problem by bringing Edwin van der Sar from Fulham for approximately £2 million.
Ben Foster also arrived from Stoke City for around £2.5 million.
Park Ji-sung joined from PSV Eindhoven for roughly £4 million after an excellent European campaign.
The spending was partly offset by departures.
Kléberson was sold.
Phil Neville moved on.
Together, those deals recovered around £6 million.
The overall net investment was modest.
That immediately reinforced the fears of supporters who believed the Glazer takeover would force Manchester United into a more restrictive financial era.
Arsenal had their own reasons for caution.
The new stadium consumed almost every discussion around Wenger's transfer budget.
The Frenchman still found opportunities.
Alex Song arrived on loan from Bastia.
The nineteen-year-old Cameroonian had already been playing regularly in France and was highly regarded by New Manchester United's scouting department.
Their reports considered Song an excellent defensive prospect.
In some respects, his ball-winning and positional discipline were already more reliable than Mikel's.
But his technical level was less suited to Mourinho's midfield, where every central player was expected to contribute significantly in possession.
New Manchester United therefore never pursued him seriously.
Arsenal's needs were different.
Song would compete with Flamini and the other midfielders, with Arsenal retaining an option to make the transfer permanent for roughly €4 million after the season.
For a club operating under severe financial restrictions, the arrangement suited Wenger perfectly.
Liverpool were spending more aggressively.
Their first major move brought Peter Crouch back from Southampton for approximately £7 million.
Benítez then signed Mohamed Sissoko from Valencia, describing the midfielder as a player with the athletic qualities to become one of the best in England.
The next priority was Villarreal goalkeeper Pepe Reina.
A product of Barcelona's academy, Reina had developed into one of La Liga's most reliable keepers.
Benítez wanted him as the long-term replacement for Jerzy Dudek.
Liverpool were also reducing the size of the squad.
Milan Baroš was available.
El Hadji Diouf was being moved on.
Chris Kirkland's future was elsewhere.
Benítez wanted a leaner, more competitive group rather than a large collection of players he did not fully trust.
Newcastle and Everton were active too.
Both had already committed more than £10 million before the transfer window officially opened.
Newcastle wanted to erase the memory of a disastrous season.
Everton needed a deeper squad after qualifying for Europe.
Phil Neville was one of Moyes's additions.
Mikel Arteta was another important target around whom Everton hoped to build their midfield.
Tottenham, Middlesbrough and promoted West Ham were also active.
Across the Premier League, money was moving.
New Manchester United were the obvious exception.
The European champions had one of the largest available transfer budgets in England.
They barely touched it.
Droylsden were behaving similarly after winning promotion.
Pellegrini's priority was not to replace half the team simply because they had reached the Premier League.
He wanted continuity.
Droylsden's first objective was keeping the players who had taken them up.
So far, they had succeeded.
New Manchester United's restraint came from a different position.
They did not lack money.
They did not lack ambition.
They simply did not believe spending for the sake of spending would improve the team.
The one significant first-team addition was Dani Alves, recalled from Benfica after two highly successful seasons in Portugal.
Around Europe, that move attracted attention out of proportion to the cost.
Alves was already valued at around £15 million by the transfer market.
New Manchester United were bringing him back for only the development compensation owed to Benfica under their partnership agreement.
He would compete directly with Maicon.
The press quickly described him as the club's next potential breakout star.
It was becoming a familiar pattern.
Real Madrid had built a reputation for buying superstars.
Barcelona pursued them too.
Chelsea could afford almost anyone Abramovich wanted.
Manchester City were now attempting to join that world through sheer financial force.
New Manchester United had developed a different reputation.
They produced superstars.
Kaká had arrived as a prospect.
Ronaldo had arrived as a teenager.
Messi had grown up at Newton Heath.
Essien, Evra, Čech, Curtis and numerous others had developed into elite players inside the club's structure.
Even footballers who later left, such as Palacio and the Touré brothers, had increased dramatically in value during their time there.
Neither model was automatically superior.
Buying established stars could accelerate success.
Developing them required patience and accepted risk.
Most true giants eventually did both.
The important point was that New Manchester United were no longer being discussed as an ambitious young club hoping to join the elite someday.
After winning the Champions League, they had crossed another threshold.
Supporters accepted them.
Players wanted to join them.
Commercial partners treated them as one of Europe's major properties.
Their squad could compete with anyone.
Their finances were strong enough to retain it.
They had everything required to behave like a giant.
The remaining question was whether Europe's traditional elite were ready to recognise them as one.
And that brought the discussion back to G14.
(To be continued.)