It is easy to believe something special is beginning to take shape at Old Trafford. Recent performances have asked us to consider that after all the years of success, Sir Alex Ferguson might be in the throes of putting together his greatest Manchester United side. Last season’s championship victory might one day be remembered as the beginning of the new era.

The evidence this season may not be irrefutable but it is compelling. To the team that won last season’s title, Ferguson has added Owen Hargreaves, Carlos Tevez, Nani and Anderson. It is impossible to know which of the four will make the greatest contribution but it is already certain that all four will help to make United better.

With Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic the best central defensive partnership in the Premier League, United are very solid at the back but it is the team's creativity that excites everyone and especially the possibilities when Ronaldo, Tevez and Wayne Rooney play together. So far, this threesome have started seven matches together and between them have scored 17 goals in those games.

“It’s good,” said Ferguson when that statistic was mentioned on Friday morning at the team's training centre in Car-rington. Could we, asked a journalist, be one day talking about them in the same breath as Law, Best and Charlton? Ferguson was reluctant to jump that far ahead. “Well, those three (Law, Best and Charlton), they each won the European Player of the Year, which was some achievement for three players from the same club.”

But Ferguson is excited by the possibilities of the current crop. How could he not be? As he said, Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney have the fundamental attributes of great United players: very skilful, the ability to beat a player and courage. The discussion then moved on to the impact of the latest young recruits, Anderson and Nani, and the manager told a story about Ronaldo's first season at Old Trafford.

“Young players surprise you,” said Ferguson. “When we signed Ronaldo we said, ‘Look Cristiano, you might only end up playing 20 games in your first season’, but he played 40. We said the same to Nani and Anderson, we told them they would not play every week and they’ve been helped by Ronaldo. They stayed in his house when they first came and I’m sure part of the reason they came to United was because he was here.

“But we’re delighted how they’ve settled in. When we decided to play them, there was an immediate impact which you don't always get. Anderson has just accelerated in the last two or three weeks because he was given the opportunity to show what he could do. We have been very pleased with that, probably the most pleasing part because it proves we're getting it right with our recruitment policy. When you pay a lot of money for young players, you are taking a chance. But I believe with the players we’ve bought that we’ve made the right decisions. If last week’s Champions League game had been vital for us, Anderson wouldn’t have been left out of the team.”

As to whether Anderson was the logical replacement for Paul Scholes, Ferguson agreed the plan was for Anderson to be the long-term replacement for Scholes and for Nani to be Ryan Giggs’s long-term replacement. But the manager wanted to stress the long-term nature of the plan. “I’m not putting anyone on the shelf, Paul Scholes can play until he is 36.”

United’s manager has also been well pleased by the speed with which Tevez has settled into his new environment. From the emphatic 4-0 victory over Dynamo Kiev in midfield, Ferguson plucked one moment – the second goal. “Tevez got the ball, went to go outside of the defender who moved to block that run. As soon as he did, Tevez went inside him, beat him well and scored the goal. These guys have got those things in their locker. They can do something that changes a game.”

Someone mentioned Michael Carrick saying he sometimes liked to stand back in a game and admire what Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo were getting up to. “I get too engrossed in the game to stand back,” said Ferguson. And as anyone who saw him at the Emirates stadium states last weekend, the manager is not losing any passion for his work.

It was put to him that the current crop must excite as much as any young team he has put together. There was a flicker of real enthusiasm, he admitted that you did feel that from time to time but then his countenance changed and he made a short state of the Manchester United union address: “Fortunately,” he said, “you have those moments of real optimism and enthusiasm here. Unfortunately, there has to be an end product and that means we have to win silverware. If we do it with the current group, it will be done in the right way because they play in the right way.”

The cautionary note was appropriate because shortly after Ferguson spoke, Rooney damaged an ankle on the training ground and will be out of action for the next four weeks. In Rooney’s absence, Mark Hughes, the former United striker who now manages Blackburn, will consider his team’s task slightly less impossible at Old Trafford this afternoon.

And for all the quality of Ronaldo, Tevez, Anderson and Nani, Rooney has played like a leader this season. Without him, Tevez for one might not be so effective. But Ferguson has dealt with enough injured players throughout his 21 years at United to know that they come and go and they simply have to be dealt with. He expects a tough game this afternoon. “What Mark has done at Blackburn is to keep his team together and they are reaping the rewards for that. He has done really well and the thing you notice about his team is that they are never badly beaten. This season they have drawn at home to both Arsenal and Liverpool. It will be tough.”

He may expect a tough game, but he will also expect to win it.