Within a matter of weeks, Manchester United should have confirmation that they will have to settle for second place this season.

Pep Guardiola's City reign supreme at the Premier League summit by a mammoth, almost certainly insurmountable 16 points.

They could lose five of their remaining eight games - having tasted defeat just once all season - and it still wouldn't be enough to make Jose Mourinho's men champions.

In the Sir Alex Ferguson days, second place simply wasn't good enough. However, his latest successor is being given time because everyone at the club acknowledges the scale of the rebuilding project the Portuguese is having to undertake.

Not only did they finish fifth in Louis van Gaal's final campaign at the helm, the Dutchman's brand of football was so unbefitting of everything associated with Manchester United that he had to be dispensed with.

Just as Dave Sexton found out the hard way in 1981, Old Trafford is meant to be a stage for entertainment, with its players oozing panache and brilliance.

LVG has long made it clear he still harbours a little bitterness over his sacking, but he has now come out with an explanation for why his United team were so pedestrian.

And it's fair to say, if he wanted to stay in United fans' good graces - if he was ever there in the first place - he ought to have steered clear of making these comments.

How LVG sees the Premier League now 

"Pep Guardiola is, for me, currently the best coach of the Premier League, " he told Bild, quoted by the Manchester Evening News.

"Pep has made City a machine. He shows the style of football that I would have liked to play at Manchester United.

"But he has better players for it. For me, the process would have taken longer. Unfortunately, I did not get the time."

Not enough time? Perhaps that's a consolation David Moyes can hold onto, but not LVG, who was given two whole years to make his mark.

He also had 13 players brought in, but the likes of Memphis Depay, Angel Di Maria, Morgan Schneiderlin, and Bastian Schweinsteiger failed to show their best.

It also sounds like there's a jibe at Mourinho in there - the Special One will not appreciate such an unfavourable comparison with Guardiola.

Van Gaal has been out of work since leaving the Theatre of Dreams in 2016, despite a CV boasting seven league titles across three different countries.

How far behind City do you think United are? Have your say in the comments.