With the start of the 2016/17 Premier League season less than two weeks away, Premier League correspondent Richard Jolly provides his previews for each club. Here he looks at Manchester United.
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After three wasted years, United have made the move they should have done in 2016 and appointed Jose Mourinho manager.
They have not finished in the top three since Alex Ferguson retired. The Portuguese has never finished outside it in a full season at any club. His horrific last few months at Chelsea looks an aberration in the context of a career and a brilliant short-term manager has wasted little time in targeting the title.
Mourinho has been decisive in his dealings, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan bringing track records of scoring and creating goals to a sterile side. Should Paul Pogba join for a world-record sum, United will have the biggest statement of intent of all and added dynamism in midfield.
Louis van Gaal’s style of play is set to be ditched: Mourinho does not believe in possession for possession’s sake.
The one element of his predecessor’s game he will hope to retain is the fine defensive record, albeit with different personnel. David de Gea, whose brilliance is taken for granted, should have a different defence, with Eric Bailly signing, Daley Blind no longer a first-choice centre-half and Luke Shaw fit again to resume at left-back.
The biggest change of all, though, is in the dugout.
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Key Man: Henrikh Mkhitaryan
The numbers alone show why he was named the Bundesliga’s player of the year in his Borussia Dortmund days. Another 19 goals and 24 assists and the Armenian will be an Old Trafford favourite.
Pivotal Signing: Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Apart from providing United with a Galactico, the Swede has a formidable record: 13 league titles in 15 years and he scored 50 goals in all competitions for Paris Saint-Germain last year.
Point to Prove: Wayne Rooney
His return of eight league goals last season was his lowest since he was a teenager at Everton. Playing for Van Gaal, and in midfield at times, did not help, but he needs to show he can be more potent.
Crucial Factor: Scoring goals
United managed just 49 — their lowest tally since the 1980s — last season. All of the top four got at least 65. Ibrahimovic’s arrival should help, but they also have to show the attacking intent to raise that total dramatically.
Predicted finish: 3rd
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