It's been a very long time since Manchester United were challenging for Premier League titles season after season without fail.

In the 22 seasons between 1991 and 2013, the Red Devils didn’t finish below third under the guidance of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson - and they only finished third on three occasions!

They also won 13 league titles during that time.

But since Ferguson’s retirement after the 2012/13 triumph, United have finished seventh, fourth, fifth, sixth, second and now look set to miss out of the top-four this season.

Can such a change of fortunes be solely put down to Ferguson leaving the club?

One thing that certainly hasn’t helped is the club’s wretched transfer record in the past 10 years.

The Telegraph have produced a report that looks at ‘Manchester United's dismal decade of recruitment.’

In the report, James Ducker identifies United’s best 10 signings this decade - and the list is seriously underwhelming.

MAN UTD TOP 10 SIGNINGS THIS DECADE

Antonio Valencia £15.25m
Javier Hernandez £7m
David De Gea £18.3m
Ashley Young £17m
Robin van Persie £24m
Sergio Romero free
Luke Shaw £28m
Ander Herrera £28.8m
Zlatan Ibrahimovic free
Victor Lindelof £31m

If that’s as good as it gets for United, then no wonder they’re not competing for league titles.

While all of them have served the club well at various times during their career, many of them aren't exactly world-class players.

The truth is, a club of United’s stature should be signing far better players over a 10-year period than those in the list.

Following United's latest defeat - a 4-0 loss to Everton - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admitted that he will be looking to sign players to improve the squad this summer.

"There will be signings but the players have got to come back knowing what's expected of them as well on the first day of pre-season," he said.

We've got scouts scouring the planet for good footballers and we'll sign players we think are the right fit - personality-wise, quality-wise, price-wise.

"I'm confident we're doing what we can to get the right players in."