I think Utd will always be a shadow of themselves since Fergie has left - even with Van Gaal at the helm, and all the money they have blown they still seem to be struggling. I can't see them winning the Prem this season if they keep going the way they are. I think it'll be between Man City and Arsenal for this years title now.
No manager will ever be able to come close to replicating Ferguson for United... or any other team for that matter - not because they're not good enough but because they'll never be given the chance. In the modern game, a bad run equals being "under pressure" and any prolongment of that bad run equals the sack. In order to keep your job, you'd need to excel all the time and never go through a bad spell. If you are a top-end club and you fall out of that zone, you get sacked. If you are an established, mid-table Premier League side and you drop into the relegation zone after a bad run, chairmen panic and sack the manager (ie. Swansea) If you are a manager who has pulled up trees to get a team promoted into the Premier League and are languishing in the relegation zone come Christmas, then you are probably staring the sack in the face as well.
van Gaal appears to have made a real mess of things it has to be said and some serious money has been wasted. But do you really let someone spend like that and then press eject to bring in another manager who will want to spend millions on a fresh set of players?
I hope Chelsea don't sack Mourinho as I'd be fascinated to see if he could turn things around next season. I suspect his idea would be to transfer list everyone and buy a new squad. There's got to have been something happened behind the scenes for them to be that bad this season. He's brought all his problems on himself though, and the funny thing is he probably doesn't have a clue how to handle the situation having never been in it before.
When are people going to take Leicester seriously? We're all waiting for them to slip up just like we're waiting for the big guns to start firing, but neither thing is happening. Of course, I still find it difficult to believe that it will actually happen but surely if an unfancied side is ever going to win the league then it'll be this season.
