Jose Mourinho hoping to engineer a Premier League title challenge after his team could only manage sixth place last season.
Since winning the 2012/13 Premier League title, Manchester United have finished 7th, 4th, 5th and 6th in the final standings. Indeed, they are only back in the Champions League this term because Jose Mourinho swiftly realised that the Europa League was there for the taking.
Nevertheless, despite this failure to remotely challenge for a title in the past four years, the Red Devils are among the favourites to be crowned champions next May, with the bookies pricing them up at similar odds to reigning champions Chelsea.
Bet365 offer 4.33 that United finish top of the pile, with Jose Mourinho having previously won league titles with Chelsea in England, while he’s also been successful with Porto, Internazionale and Real Madrid in their respective countries.
Mourinho has been given the opportunity to strengthen the squad and that includes the recruitment of Romelu Lukaku and Victor Lindelof, both of whom should be regular starters after arriving for a combined fee of over £100 million.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney are the notable players to have departed the club, with further new signings likely to materialise before the transfer window closes, although Mourinho is clearly bothered by the big-spending rivals in the same city who have spent twice as much on several players.
Mourinho likes to manipulate the press with tactical comments and has chosen to put up Tottenham as the most dangerous title rivals next season, with Spurs having yet to sign a new player during the transfer window although that might yet change.
Mourinho said: “I don’t think we are big candidates for the title but we are [candidates]. Everybody speaks about the dimension of the investment at Man City but there is another team that I feel the dimension of their investment is also phenomenal – Tottenham.
“Until now they spent zero pounds, right? They keep everybody they want to keep. They keep Dele Alli, [Harry] Kane and [Toby] Alderweireld, they keep Eric Dier, they keep everyone they want to keep”.
It does appear as though United have been overrated in the market again, with Lukaku merely a like-for-like swap for Ibrahimovic and it’s not certain that Lindelof will greatly improve a defence that was pretty strong last term.
United are 1.33 to secure a top four finish next season and that looks a skinny price considering that they were the worst finishing side in the top six last season and are in danger of becoming a team of superstars without any real coherence.
Mourinho does have experience of succeeding in the Champions League against lesser teams and United are around the 15.00 mark to win this competition. Perhaps it will be their only route back into the competition again.
