United will be right there with us this year - hard to see how anyone thinks otherwise. Last year was partly a weaker squad, but also heavily a terrible manager. Van Gaal is a materially better manager than Moyes, so while the squad still needs a lot of strengthening, they will make up some of the gap. I reckon it's City/Chelsea for the top 2, then United/Arsenal/us for 3rd and 4th. Not inconcievable that someone leaps up on the back of a single player having a breathtaking year (like Suarez had last year), but I would have thought that that was how the year will shape up - United will be a lot better side this year.
We shall see.
It doesn't really matter how they do in relation to us, we aren't their benchmark, their benchmark is themselves, they have to live up to the standards they previously set, that Ferguson set. I doubt they will manage it.
Yes, Moyes was a big factor in what happened to them last year, but the biggest was losing Ferguson. Whether they will admit it or not he had a massive amount of influence on officials, they would get the rub of the green more often than not, they also benefited from the fear factor he exerted. Other lesser clubs and managers went into games against him with the mindset of surviving, of not getting beaten too bad. All of that is gone now. Teams will go looking to get something off them, a small change, but massive over the course of a season.
To say Moyes was the problem and he is gone so they will be fine now is to assume football is a simple equation, when its in fact incredibly complex. No one thing wins a title, no one player, no one manager, its about a million different moving parts, if one isn't working properly it can wreck the entire process.
Getting rid of Moyes was the right thing to do, but they should of gotten rid when it became very clear, very early on, that it wasn't going to work. I suspect they intended to, that they looked around and for various reasons didnt, like there wasn't anyone decent available, the way it would of appeared PR wise etc. I reckon they took a reasonable gamble on letting him see out the rest of the season, that the end result wouldn't be too bad. He would at least get them into the top four, he'd done it once with Everton and he come close a few times and with a much lesser squad of players. That he didn't do it has fucked them up in loads of hilarious ways, but it was always going to happen some way, when Ferguson left, they were going to plummet without him.
So, given its so complex, we shall see how they do.
