. Manchester United legend Gary Neville does not believe his former club are ready to challenge Chelsea FC for the Premier League title, but, will continue to improve under Louis van Gaal.
Manchester United finished a disappointing fourth in the Premier League, 17 points behind eventual champions Chelsea FC, despite spending over 150 million GBP on new players.
Gary Neville believes that the club have made progress under Louis van Gaal and will have a better start to the season than last time, when they had bought a lot of new players in the squad.
“Louis van Gaal has had a year at the club now, he’s settled in, the players know him a lot more,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“I suppose there is a risk if they bring in five or six new players about how they would adapt to it but we’ve yet to see that.”
“The players that are there will adapt a lot easier this season, they’ve had a year with him, he’s had a year with them and it should be a more comfortable position to start from.”
Neville believes that Manchester United need to get off to a fast start in the new Premier League season, with home games against top four rivals Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur in the opening weeks offering them a chance to make a statement of intent and leave the rivals for top four position in their trail.
“I think Tottenham, Liverpool and United will be looking at those games and thinking to themselves, ‘this is a great way to announce ourselves and give ourselves confidence to push on,'” Neville stated.
“There are two ways of looking at it, you can set a marker down for how you are going to perform in the big matches and you can gain a great deal of confidence.”
However, Neville does not believe Manchester United are ready to win the Premier League with Chelsea FC tipped as the favorite by the insightful pundit.
“Chelsea will be the team to beat and I think everyone would say that. However, who knows what is going to happen in the next month in terms of signings and how those signings will then come in and adapt.”