Previous 7 title winners of the last decade :
2010-11 champions : 80 points.
2011-12 champions : 89 points.
2012-13 champions : 89 points.
2013-14 champions : 84 points.
2014-15 champions : 87 points.
2015-16 champions : 81 points.
2016-17 champions : 93 points.
Average : 86 points.
Not trying to say we deserve to win the league this season, ofcourse we don't. Manchester City deserve all the plaudits, the credit and the point shattering record they are setting. They have been utterly ruthless, quite magnificent and a statistical improbability with what they will achieve, and I can say they are one of the best, if not the best team English league has ever seen, of all time. Nothing can take away the fact that they look like THE team in Europe right now and It'd be quite a task to beat them in Europe too.
But having said that. We are on course to finish on 85-86 points this season. We are going to have our best league finish in 5 years with the best attacking numbers in the same time frame. We are still very much a team in transition with the mismanagement since 2009 and some absolute garbage bought by our last two managers. The mentality of our club in the past 5 years is of has-been champions rather than any resemblance to a team which can be challenging for major honors. I am pretty sure, this will be a milestone year for us when Manchester United is back as a club which can start challenging for major honors. Ferguson in his 2nd season finished 9 points behind Liverpool in 2nd, but we were never in the title race. But it was our best league finish in 5 years and later that set for him to famously say that he wants to knock Liverpool off the fecking perch. We are still on the perch and we will remain there for the foreseeable future, but with City's squad looking fantastic, we are catching up to them in securing the best kids in England, Belgium and Netherlands to join our academy, something Ferguson fixed in the late 80s while securing players like Irwin, Hughes etc, something Jose has tried to emulate in Matic and Lukaku and that will help us in the long run. Our football might be lethargic at times, our performances in the big games might be a bit negative and we might not be the most exciting team to watch, but Fergie's early teams were hardly fun to watch and I really like how sticking up with him later turned for United.
Personally I have seen a lot of mistakes which Jose has made which he could avoided, but I feel he has done a great job to get out of the rut we were in, in terms of league finishes. Without the fantastic season which City is having, this might have been a title race going to the wire. We are still very much in transition, but with a massive transfer window coming in, I think if we can fill the gaps in our squad, fix some gaping problems, I think we can realistically challenge for the title next season.