There was a stat recently that what's commonly accepted as the Invincibles XI only ever played five-six games together. There was another stat about how Alex Ferguson never started the same team twice in 200+ games. I recently rewatched the 5-1 Inter game, and we arrived at San Siro with Cygan, Parlour, Edu and Kanu in the starting eleven. Three bit players and a backup striker who, for the entirety of the 2000s, was as useful as Yaya Sanogo. We also had the best player in the world on that day, and that's what made the difference in the scoreline, but the lack of depth is why we never won Champions League despite being the best in Europe.
Teams so rarely start a full eleven that you have to have a full squad, especially nowadays when the game is more demanding and there are more cups than ever. This is how Ferguson won half of his trophies. His teams were rarely as good as Wenger's in terms of extreme end quality but he had unlimited pockets and paid millions to class players who were willing to sit on the bench for a paycheck.
