The Manchester United executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, said he is not "concerned" that failure to qualify for the Champions League for a prolonged period would affect commercial and financial strategy.
David Moyes is also expected to strengthen the squad with a minimum of four players in the summer, more signings than the club have made in recent years.
In a conference call with investors to discuss United's quarterly results, Woodward also stressed the club's digital strategy, citing how Juan Mata's £37.1m arrival last month increased the champions' Twitter followers by 288,000 – "14-fold" – and on Facebook "four-fold".
United are seventh in the table and if they lose at Arsenal and Liverpool beat Fulham on Wednesday evening they will be 12 points from a Champions League place.
Yet Woodward was bullish regarding how the prospect of not playing in the competition would affect United. When asked how long the club's financial strategy could continue without Champions League football, Woodward said: "The first thing I would say is our starting point [for] long-term strategy is to focus on building a competitive squad that challenges for trophies. Part of the financial strength we have and we have presented in the results today demonstrates that we have the ability to do that. We have the ability to buy players, to churn players, to make sure we are competing at the top level, which is what we should be doing.
"The second thing I'd say is that I think it takes a long time to build up a huge fan base, to have, if you like, the equity values of what we are as a business and a club projected out there so people can understand from a commercial perspective why it make sense to partner with us. And I don't think that will go away for a long time.
"Some of our competitors haven't won the Premier League for a long time but still sell a huge number of shirts – out there globally, some just down the road from us. So that's not something I'm sitting here concerned about. What I am focused on is that long-term strategy."
Regarding the prospect of Moyes' sizable rebuilding in the close season, Woodward, who would not offer the potential spend, said: "It's fair to say we are focused on strengthening the squad. We are looking at some players that perhaps we will sell this summer. We wouldn't necessarily be looking to churn a huge number of players as that can have a destabilising effect, but we aren't afraid of moving in the market in a way that perhaps we haven't seen in recent years.
"If you look at historic numbers [of new players recruited in previous summers] that gives you one guide; if you look at historic churning of players by numbers that gives you another guide. Historically we've had roughly three purchases and three sales each year and it's possible that we would do more than that. It is a dynamic situation and the market can throw up opportunities or the opposite of that as we go through the window."
Woodward also accepted that United are having a disappointing season, stating that "everyone from the team manager" is conscious of the club's poor performance.
He said: "We once again achieved a record revenue quarter with strong contributions from our commercial and broadcasting businesses despite the league position. We continue to see meaningful opportunities to grow our commercial business and the popularity of football on TV is leading to continued broadcasting revenue growth – all of which bodes well for the long-term stability and financial strength of our business. We are also very pleased to have added a world-class player in Juan Mata to our squad, who has already made a positive impact."
In the last three months of 2013 commercial revenue was up 18.8% to £42.3m.
