Ofcourse that's how it should be judged, not with the benefit of hindsight, with posts like "lol we signed Mkhi, now we have Sancho". The atmosphere at the club was very different, 2016 many thought we had chance of winning the league within few seasons because of Jose and 2017-18 many thought we have done very well and we can compete for the league. How it ended is a different story.
Agenda driven
, says the guy who can't wait to shit on Bruno to the guy who defends both Pogba and Bruno.
What's bizarre is you randomly picking few weak players and then compare it with strong players in this squad. Like Pogba walked into the team with Fellaini at CM, Blind at CB, Mata as RW completely ignoring we also had Herrera as CM, Bailly as CB, Carrick who is much better than any CM we have (bar Pogba), Mkhi who was signed to play as RW.
By the same logic, Bruno walked into the team that had James, AP, Lingard playing regularly. At least should be consistent with the logic.
Coming to how the teams are rated, go back to 2016 and most fans rated that team highly, who wouldn't when we signed 3 of the best players from Serie A, Bundesliga, French league. Most fans always rate the team highly at the start of the season, only after few years we will get to know the real quality of the team. Only time when the team wasn't highly rated was in 2019 summer.
Right now with all the benefit of hindsight and how it ended, I rate this team higher than the one in 2016. Go back 5 years and most rated that team too. 5 years down the line, we will sign new shiny players and this team won't be rated as highly unless they win the title.