Manchester United 2017/18 Premier League season preview: Is Jose Mourinho still the special one?

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Perhaps most crucially, this squad now know what it’s like to regularly win trophies after adding the Europa League and League Cup to 2015-16’s FA Cup, and Jose Mourinho knows better than anyone the deep positive effect of that.

He will hope it gives them a new assertiveness, because that is what an occasionally meek team arguably lacked above anything last season. He has tried to further effect that, of course. The personnel have certainly changed and, in terms of actually getting the signings they specifically need, Mourinho has arguably been more successful in this window than any other manager. They’ve replaced Zlatan Ibrahimovic, brought in a new centre-half and also got the defensive midfielder in Nemanja Matic that the manager saw as more important than anything else.

United will also surely benefit from better understanding Mourinho’s requirements and demands, as has been the case with all of his previous sides in their second seasons, too. But has the overall quality changed? Has it really been elevated? That’s open to question and is currently hard to answer.

It still does feel like they need a little bit more, even if a player like Marcus Rashford is surely set to make another leap this season, but it could be the difference in properly challenging for the title.

The players Mourinho most needs, even if he still doesn’t have everything he wants. Romelu Lukaku has replaced Zlatan Ibrahimovic up front, Victor Lindelof has come in at centre-half and Matic is their new defensive midfielder. He still wants a wide player and, if he got his way, even more options than that - especially in attack and the full-back positions.

Wayne Rooney’s Old Trafford era has finally ended as he returns to Everton, while Adnan Januzaj goes to Real Sociedad, but United have so far struggled to off-load the handful of players Mourinho doesn’t really see a future for.

It seems it will depend on the game. Mourinho has shown indications he is willing to use an in-fashion three-man defence this season, although four is still likely to be his preference. Perhaps the most enticing question is over how he will use his attack, and whether he will let Romelu Lukaku and Rashford wreak havoc together up front, and whether he will play more of his more creative attackers - like Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan - behind them rather than always having more of a worker like Jesse Lingard. Matic being placed at the centre of that team could be the key to this question, as well as releasing Paul Pogba. Mourinho believes the French star can go to another level in attack this season.

Can they score more, converting more of those draws to wins, and thereby offer a proper title challenge? If they can, it could go a long way to answering an even bigger question that goes beyond this season - is Mourinho still at his best?

Mourinho continues the hugely convincing trend of winning the title in his second season at a club. He has never failed to.

Everton fully maximise all the money they’ve spent while United stagnate, meaning they drop out of the top six, and pretty much all the positive vibes about this regime evaporate given it’s the second season. It sounds fairly fanciful but there were times last season when it didn’t feel out of the question.