I should preface this by saying that I think we still need more depth and that I think solskjaer is so far being failed in the window by about 3 signings.
But on a note of optimism, if you consider our terrible form in the first stages of last season and consider who was often starting or featuring frequently, we have quietly transformed for a number of reasons including fitness, youth development and signings.
Looking at last season in the first third of the campaign we frequently saw starts or common involvement from
Lingard
James
Pereira
Young (made 15 starts before mid season departure)
Often, at least one of these was starting. I expect we will rarely see any start this season. We saw little of matic. Mata was commonly called upon.
This season we add the following, who we did not see for most of the first third to half of last season, or at all:
Pogba - return to fitness
Bruno Fernandes--January window
Van De Beek - new signing
Henderson--return from loan
Ighalo--loan
Not to the same extent but we could arguably add
Greenwood--lightly used initially and developed far beyond expectations.
And if rumours are to be believed
Reguilon - said to be close.
When you compare how we are starting this campaign, versus the first third of last season, we are arguably around 7 players stronger and that includes some real quality.
As I said I still think we need at least 2 more recruits (plus Reguilon) and if sancho is one then fantastic, but are we in better shape than we think, especially compared to the stages of last season when so much damage was done to our ambition?
I'm not sure we are better than last year, not by much anyway. Our first 11 is decent, but the next 11 after that are terrible.
If we stick to 4231, lets look at our players for each position...
GK - DDG, Henderson, Romero
RB - AWB, TFM, Dalot
LB - Shaw, Williams
CB - Maguire/Lindelof, Bailly/Jones, Taunzebe/Rojo
CM - Matic/Pogba, VDB/Fred/McT
CAM - Fernandes, Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Periera
LW - Rashford, James
RW - Greenwood, James, Periera
ST - Martial, Rashford, Ighalo
We're stacked in goal and in central midfield, but in defence and attack, once we go past the first choices, we're either bringing in other first 11 players and replacing their position with a lousy backup or we're going with a lousy backup. This is what our second 11 looks like if we're not redeploying first xi players;
Henderson
Dalot
Bailly Jones Williams
VDB Fred
Periera Mata James
Ighalo
Only four of those players are really any good. This is what will let us down next season, as it did last season. We play 50-60 games a season, injuries happen, football is more intense. These are the guys we'll fall back on.
CB might be okay if we keep Smalling (unlikely) but the fullback positions, the wings and up front, are all weak. We don't need to replace all the weaker players, but 2 or 3 replacements might help us big time. For example a first choice RW would mean Greenwood free to rotate across the front 3, meaning we don't have James stinking the place up. Competition at LB would mean we could get the relatively competent Williams covering on the right, rather than the out of favour Dalot.
We're in a much better position, but we have momentum to build it, it'd be a shame to see it go to waste as we trudge through League cup matches.