Why Manchester United are the prime favourites to lift the Premier League title

Without a doubt, the 2016-17 season of the English Premier League is going to be the season of managers. Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte, Jurgen Klopp, Arsene Wenger, Claudio Ranieri, and of course, Jose Mourinho. It is the result of a very rare aligning of celestial bodies that we are witnessing this ensemble of heavyweights compete against each other for a league title. As expected, Conte, Guardiola, and Mourinho have all started their campaigns in style with three consecutive wins. All these clubs had a significant style of their own in the past few seasons, and a change of style was expected to be seen. Liecester City, Arsenal and Liverpool in the meanwhile, have started their seasons with surprise defeats much to the dismay of the fans. But of all, Jose Mourinho looks the top contender for the title and its not just the first three games that point to the Special One's chances.

Firstly, the experience of a manager counts the most when all chips are down, and the Premier League can hurt even the greatest of coaches who are not acclimatized to the English conditions. Both, Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte have a wealth of experience playing against the top teams of England, but the key part is to win the tricky fixtures against smaller teams in the Premier league, where an upset is always on the cards every week. Arsene Wenger's weakness of losing out to small teams at the most critical parts of the season has led to Arsenal losing out on the top spot and the title in the past few years. Despite being the most-experienced league campaigner, the Frenchman has won only 3 titles in his 17-year long career at Arsenal. 

Though Claudio Ranieri was able to rewrite history books by guiding Leicester City to an improbable title triumph last season, it would be difficult to replicate the same extended fairy tale another time. Mourinho, on the other hand, knows best among the lot, and his 3 Premier League titles from six seasons at Chelsea proves his expertise at handling things in the Premier League. His previous Chelsea teams had blazing stars to the season with most wins in the opening half of the season which compensates for the losses during tough outings at the business end of the seasons.

The reason contributing to the teams' loss of intensity is the packed schedule during Christmas and the fixtures following it. While Conte and Guardiola are new to this type of playing schedule, Arsene Wenger has been known to handle the post-Christmas schedule poorly as previous seasons saw the Gunners losing their way at the top during these hectic weeks. The approach of the managers also plays a key role in these scenarios. Teams which start the campaign with much swagger find it hard to maintain the same intensity after around Christmas having to play matches within the gap of just 3-4 days. Method-oriented system might have long term effects but result-oriented managers have been the most successful in the Premier League era. Guardiola's obsession with his playing philosophy is well-known and for the same reason was criticized for Bayern's semifinal losses in the Champions League. 

Former Juventus midfielder, Andrea Pirlo, once mentioned in his autobiography that Antonio Conte had to take sleeping pills in order to sleep at night after spending countless hours trying to perfect his tactics which clearly shows the Italian's belief in his methods. While Jurgen Klopp is keen about his concept of “Gegen-Pressing”, the German chiefly concentrates about the result of each match and the position of his team in the points table. While, Klopp's plans for Christmas are yet to be seen in this season, Jose Mourinho ability in such scenarios is hard to argue. He put aside his swashbuckling style in the earlier stages of the season with his Chelsea side of 2014-15 and only concentrated on securing three points every match during December and January. Despite conceding five goals against Tottenham in a single match, Chelsea's 17 points during that jam-packed period saw them cruise to a title victory.

A hectic schedule also demands each team to have a squad depth that can survive a whole season. All the managers have set out to chop and change their squads this summer which resulted in signing some quality players. While Chelsea had some quality signings such as Michy Batshuayi and Ngolo Kante, Man City have impressed in the transfer market by signing Leroy Sane, Ilkay Gundogan, John Stones and Nolito. But Manchester United have been the biggest winners of the summer, with the star signings of Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Baily and Henrikh Mkhitaryan which adds to their supremely talented squad. 

While signing a good player adds to the squad depth and quality, training methods implemented by the coaches also play a part in the player's fitness. Guardiola's demands in training have already seen Bayern Munich struggle with injuries to its key players throughout his regime, and if measures are not taken this time, City too will struggle to keep their key players fresh for an entire season. An aging squad, less transfer activity meant that Arsenal players were taking turns to be admitted into the hospital over the past few seasons, while Jurgen Klopp's demands for his high-pressing style have already resulted in hamstring injuries to six of his players in the period of one month last season. 

But if we take a look at Jose Mourinho's past squads, its surprising how the Portuguese keeps his squad fresh for multiple competitions despite working with a small unit. While other teams have 26-27 players in the squad for the entire season, Mourinho is known for working with not more than 23 players. His dressing-room feuds with the players might have affected the atmosphere on multiple occasions, but injuries to his players are not very common. Even during the 2014-15 season, Mourinho went with the same starting XI across four competitions for 39 games but still was able to keep most of his key players fit until the end which clearly shows an edge United possess this time along with their young squad. And adding to this, United do not have to worry about Champions League football and can solely concentrate on the Premier League similar to Leicester City last season.

Finally, it is safe to say that both Conte and Guardiola will take some time to adjust to the new atmosphere which might later result in both of them dominating the league. Arsenal's disappointing campaigns over the past decade will have fan's hopes fairly low, while Liverpool and Leicester City are two wild cards due to their sheer unpredictability. But it is the right time for Manchester United and Jose Mourinho to bring back the glory days to Old Trafford.