It’s been a strange old season so far. Everyone anticipated another two-horse race between Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table but it hasn’t quite worked out that way.

Liverpool, the reigning champions, are currently in pole position; however, they sit just three points above Manchester United, who have a game in hand.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been heavily criticised this season but his side will go joint top of the Premier League table if they defeat Aston Villa on New Year’s Day.

Leicester City are third, followed by Everton, then Aston Villa, while Frank Lampard’s star-studded Chelsea side are in sixth.

Then we have Tottenham in seventh before we finally get to Man City, who are eighth.

Liverpool drew their sixth league fixture of the campaign with a 0-0 stalemate away at Newcastle United on Wednesday night.

And the Reds’ failure to win at St. James’ Park saw the hashtag ’#21ISCOMING’ trend on Twitter in the aftermath of that game.

Man Utd fans, who watched their team beat Wolves on Tuesday thanks to Marcus Rashford’s dramatic winning goal in stoppage time, are starting to believe that a title challenge might be on the cards.

Most of the tweets were tongue-in-cheek, of course, and many of them were quite funny…

But should we actually be talking about United as serious title challengers?

Although their recent form is excellent - they haven’t lost in the league since a 1-0 defeat to Arsenal on November 1, and have picked up seven wins from their previous nine fixtures - United haven’t always performed well in those games.

Winning without playing well is often seen as a positive, but Man Utd have been rather fortunate on occasions. They tend to beat teams on moments of individual brilliance, rather than on the flow of the game. And they’ll be in serious trouble if Bruno Fernandes was to get injured.

That said, it’s patently clear that this United squad possesses an excellent team spirit under Solskjaer, who has the complete backing of the club’s board.

And if they defeat Liverpool at Old Trafford on January 17, talk of a potential title challenge won’t sound so ridiculous all of a sudden.