Manchester United, to borrow one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s favourite soundbites, is a bus that waits for no man. Even as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs were inspecting their winner’s medals in a champagne-spattered dressing-room, the United manager was talking of “phasing them out” of the team over the next year or two, while Rio Ferdinand was suggesting that this team needed to win the Champions League for a second time, something that the 1999 vintage could not do.

Roy Keane, in his autobiography, reflected that too many of his team-mates, notably Dwight Yorke, were content to live off the glory of winning the Champions League nine years ago, saying that they “forgot about the game and lost the hunger”, but Ferdinand says that such complacency will not afflict this team.

“This team will drive on,” the England defender said in the early hours of yesterday in Moscow. “We’ve got young enough players to do that and you can tell from the hunger we’ve got. There’s still a bit of disappointment that we didn’t get farther in the FA Cup because then we would have had an even greater season. If we’d beaten Portsmouth [in the quarter-finals], we might be talking about the treble. We can’t be too greedy, but that’s the attitude you have to have at a club like this.

“How do we beat this? By coming back to the final next year and winning it again. When you’re at Manchester United, you can’t sit still and rest on your laurels. The manager sets high standards. We as a squad set high standards. We’ll enjoy this, because we know these moments don’t come around every year, but we’ll be working as hard as anyone to try to make sure we get back here again.” Ferguson has talked of “looking into the players’ eyes, checking to see that the hunger is still there”, and not all those who travelled to Moscow will be at the club beyond the summer.

Mikaël Silvestre, an unused substitute on Wednesday, is likely to return to France, probably to Bordeaux, and Gerard Piqué, the 21-year-old Spanish defender, expects to join Barcelona, having not made the 18-man squad in Moscow. Louis Saha, whose United career was summed up when he was declared unfit to take his place among the substitutes, will be made available to the highest bidder.

Reinforcements are a necessity, with Ferguson’s priority to sign a centre forward who can add another dimension to United’s attacking play. Dimitar Berbatov, of Tottenham Hotspur, is a potential target, as is Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, of Ajax, but Ferguson is intrigued by the likely availability of Luís Fabiano, the Seville forward, and Daniel Alves, his team-mate.

Micah Richards is regarded as an ideal defensive acquisition, but only if Manchester City indicate a willingness to sell. Philipp Lahm, of Bayern Munich, who can operate in both full-back positions, is an alternative and Wilson Palacios and Luis Antonio Valencia, the Wigan Athletic duo, are also on United’s radar.

Ferguson believes that the long-term successors to Giggs and Scholes, 34 and 33 respectively, are at the club, with Nani, the Portugal winger, and Anderson, the Brazil midfield player, equipped to build on the progress they have made in their first seasons at Old Trafford. The manager also has high hopes for his home-grown talent, particularly Danny Welbeck, the teenage forward who was with the squad in Moscow, and perhaps also for Manucho Gonçalves, an Angola left winger who will arrive in Manchester in July, work permit allowing.

“I think this team is good enough,” Ferguson said. “Certain players will improve immeasurably next year. OK, you have the issue of Scholes and Giggs coming to the twilight of their careers, but they will still contribute in a big way next season. They won’t have as many games. They will be phased out. You have to do that in life. Ryan is 35 in November, Scholesy is 34 in November. But I have the back-up now. That was done last summer.”