Howard has been a good servant to us but he isn't a title-winning 'keeper like Hart, Schmeichel or Cech in his prime. He's not going to keep the opposition out by himself.
We haven't quite resolved our right back issue but even the best teams can afford to have one average player. Coleman could turn out to be as good as Baines though.
If our midfield is going to be Mirallas, Gibson, Fellaini, Osman and Pienaar then we're one player short of being able to go toe to toe with the best. It would be nice to have the luxury of calling Felli up from a more defensive position when we needed him and to have more of a ball-player like Cazorla, Silva or Gerrard to pull the strings behind the striker.
Jelavic has been great for us so far but I don't think he's a goal-scoring machine like Van Persie or Ibrahimovic.
Generally-speaking I'm not sure how many match-winners we have. When they're up against it the Manchester sides can call on the likes of Rooney, Aguero, Yaya and Tevez to pull something special out of the bag.
They have greater strength in depth than us too. For example, they can replace Kagawa and Valencia with Nani and Young.
Their players tend to be more experienced too. How much silverware has our side won as individuals? Off the top of my head I think only Howard, Neville, Gibson, Jelavic and Naismith have any medals to put on the table. Three of those were as peripheral members of the United side and the other two were in the lesser Scottish league.
Consistency could be the difference too. Title-winning sides never give up and grind out results over the course of the year. We usually switch to autopilot for part of the season. Can we maintain our concentration and win games when Fellaini or Pienaar are off colour? And do we have the killer instinct to finish teams off?
Finally, we can be a bit naive. The big guns will have no qualms about time-wasting or simulation, but we're probably a bit too honest. Some clubs might have settled for 2-0 at Swansea too rather than chasing a third and risking letting the opposition back into the game. I think you probably need to try every trick in the book to win titles and I don't think we have it in us to be underhand.
