Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have been seen as our main challengers for the title in recent years and I think they will be this year.

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City obviously have aspirations to get or stay in the top four, and maybe even challenge for the top prize. Spurs have Champions League football this year and City have spent a lot of money, but I still think the usual ‘big four’ are favourites and it’s up to the other two to prove them wrong.

I expect Arsenal and Liverpool to mount a more serious challenge this year; Arsenal were very close to the top until the last few games last season anyway. Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United were all trying to throw it away last season at different points, so we hope we are not going to make the same mistakes again.

We lost to Burnley in our second game, which started us off on a bad note. Then we had crippling injuries in defence around December and January, with seven out of eight defenders unavailable. We lost to Aston Villa and Fulham in that period, but in one game we had to play Michael Carrick, Richie De Laet and Darren Fletcher in a back three because our injury situation was so bad.

I think lots of teams will take points off each other this season, but from our point of view we want to be more consistent. Last year we lost seven games, which left us hoping rather than expecting to win the league. It’s very difficult to go through a Premier League season unbeaten but we certainly need to limit our losses to four or below to give ourselves a good chance. Losing seven matches is not acceptable at Manchester United.

There were factors beyond our control – our two losses around Christmas were purely down to injuries in defence and we were a bit unlucky with refereeing decisions in both games against Chelsea. But over the season we have to accept we weren’t quite good enough to win the league.

Chelsea were the best team last year, even though it wasn’t a standout season for the Premier League. This year we aim to change that.

Perfect warm-up

It was a really good Manchester United performance against Chelsea last Sunday in the Community Shield.

We demonstrated good levels of fitness for this time of year. We were passing the ball well and the move that created Antonio Valencia’s goal before half-time was fantastic.

It was noticeable that Chelsea were a little undercooked and we were probably a little further ahead in our preparations; and I did write before the game that the result would not have a massive impact on the season. But we had a few players in the World Cup as well, so we were very pleased with our performance.

Paul Scholes was outstanding again. If you look at the way Ryan Giggs and Scholes play, it’s sometimes difficult to have both playing together in each game because the manager likes to keep them fit for the important games, but Scholes started over 30 games last year. The level of control he brings to a football match is very difficult for other players to replicate. It is similar when Giggs plays, and they are irreplaceable in terms of their experience, quality and mentality.

It was great to see the lads go up to collect the Community Shield, but more importantly, the game will have brought us on in terms of fitness. Ninety minutes hard work against a team such as Chelsea at Wembley is great preparation for the game tomorrow against Newcastle United.

Newcastle in the past have come to Old Trafford to try and score goals. The mentality of Newcastle has always been to try to play good, attacking football with width. Although they are newly promoted, I don’t think that will change too much tomorrow; there will still be elements of their play that are true to their traditions.

Don’t write off Becks just yet

I thought England played quite well against Hungary in the friendly at Wembley last Wednesday.

Some of the football and interplay was good in the first half and the system worked better. People were crying out for England to play 4-5-1 in the World Cup and we finally saw it in a friendly against Hungary when they probably could have got away with playing 4-4-2.

The introduction of young players in the second half was good to see. The interesting thing will be if those players will be trusted to take England into the more serious qualifying games. We won’t have wait long to find out because next month’s qualifiers will come round very quickly. Fabio Capello seems to have made a statement that he wants to introduce younger players and that is all well and good, but now he has to choose them in the games that matter.

I did find it odd that Capello made a statement about David Beckham being too old to play for England. It was a strange thing to say about someone as prominent as Becks before a match. Managers know that statements like that will create a furore, but he’s not stupid, so I can’t imagine he just said it off the cuff.

Becks has been written off many times before and he’s always come back to prove people wrong. I believe you should never rule anyone out of contention to play for their country because you don’t know what can happen with injuries or form. Becks could be fit again in two months, playing the best football of his life.

Send your questions to Gary Neville to sunday@timesofmalta.com