After 10 days of disappointment, United’s woeful week was topped off by a Champions League exit. Crystal Palace came to Old Trafford and managed to get away with a win. Yes, fair enough… Mickey Mouse Carling Cup. They managed a goal to nothing victory against a struggling Villa but just four days later they crashed out of two competitions in the space of a week and the Premier League is slowly drifting away from them.

Here are just ten of the reasons why United won’t win the Premier League.

1. Noisy neighbours – City look to have the League wrapped up and it looks against the odds for any other team to snatch it, the last time these two sides met, Man City took all three points and a plus five goal difference, which shows how far they really are off top spot.

2. Fit as a fiddle? – Injuries look to be taking toll on the Manchester club with Ashley Young looks to join a dreadful list of injured players which contain Nemanja Vidic, Michael Owen, Anderson, Tom Cleverley, Fabio, Rafael, Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov.

3. One step forward, two steps back – United spent over fifty million pounds in the summer which some might see as massive steps forward, but they lost key figures in the forms of Van Der Sar, Gary Neville and the unforgettable Paul Scholes.

4. Blunt Rooney – With Wayne Rooney once again not looking so sharp, dropping back into a midfield role. Javier Hernandez out and  a man who has 4 goals in his 18 league appearances for United, where are the goals going to come from?

5. Playmaker? – A summer of speculation had football fans wondering when Wesley Sneijder was going to be arriving in Manchester but nothing concrete ever happened, United were on the lookout for a man to be slipping balls in for the attackers. United are seriously missing out on with other teams providing strong playmakers, City have Silva, Chelsea have Mata, Spurs have Van Der Vaart and Arsenal have Arteta.

6. Europa League – Harry Redknapp labelled it a “distraction” and Fergie has called it a penalty, but whatever it is branded it will mean United playing on a Thursday and then again on a Monday/Sunday.

7. Captain vanish – With Nemanja Vidic out for the rest of the season, United will be struggling, the heart of the defence, the captain and quite bluntly United’s best player will be missed. Man Utd don’t seem to be scoring freely as they have scored just one in each of their last 7 games and Robin Van Persie scoring more goals in his last 8 games than United have in that time period.

8. Giggs lost it? – Has 38 year old veteran Ryan Giggs finally hit the time where he feels it necessary for him to hang up his boots, after a couple of disappointing performances his future was put in doubt by a number of pundits.

9. Start from the back – Van Der Sar leaves and Spanish goalkeeper David De Gea is drafted in, but he looks to be a shadow of what the Dutchman was. After a number of mistakes made, De Gea looked to have regained a regular spot in goal but with him and Lindegaard both making a number of mistakes Fergie looks to have some trouble in between the sticks.

10. Holding midfielder? – Not only do United not have a creative man on the field they don’t have one to sit in front of the back four and break play up like Arsenal do with Song, Chelsea do with Ramires/Essien, Liverpool do with Lucas and City do with De Jong.