It's been a splashtastic transfer window in England, with a tidy total of £448-million changing hands. Much of that loot was spent by Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. But will the chasing pack's impressive investment help depose the English Premier League's defending champions next May?

It could happen - but don't bet against a 20th league title for Manchester United if your money matters to you. The radically rejuvenated Red Devils (last Sunday's line-up had an average age of just 23) are perfectly poised to rinse and repeat. New signing Ashley Young set the tone with his surgical dissection of poor old Arsenal, but the England winger is far from the only United player hitting his straps.

Wayne Rooney's outlook on life has brightened lately, perhaps due to his reupholstered bonce. He looks ominously relaxed. Mad Rooney was bad enough for opposition defenders; Sane Rooney is much worse.

Meanwhile, Anderson has suddenly matured into an assured regulator of United's tempo. The Brazilian has finally become a goalscorer, and has quickly established a promising rapport with Tom Cleverley, the wily young pretender to Paul Scholes's playmaking throne.

New keeper David de Gea may look lightweight, and he'll probably commit one or two howlers this season, but there's no doubt he has the natural ability required of a United keeper.

And when you factor in the insouciant excellence of other young prospects, such as Danny Welbeck, Chris Smalling and new defender Phil Jones - and the relentless consistency of the old guard - it becomes hard to picture United leaking many points.

Alex Ferguson has ample cause to be as smug and as magnanimous as he is these days. Having wielded the power of experience so masterfully in the recent past, he is now trumping Arsène Wenger at his own youth-oriented game.

And so diminished a force are Arsenal, despite Wenger's respectable last-minute acquisitions, that their realistic ambitions this season are limited to fighting Liverpool and Spurs for fourth spot and trying to bag a domestic cup to break the trophy drought.

Mikel Arteta is a fine playmaker, but he can't hold a candle to Cesc Fabregas. Nor is Yossi Benayoun an adequate replacement for Samir Nasri. Moreover, it will take at least a season for the Gunners' overhauled defence, featuring Per Mertesacker and Andre Santos, to cohere into a unit solid enough to underpin a serious title bid.

But both City and Chelsea will push United hard. The sheer depth of quality available to Roberto Mancini is frightening: his regular benchwarmers might include three of the world's best attacking players in Nasri, Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli. And now that Edin Dzeko has finally arrived in England, Mancini's formation has the powerful spearhead it needs.

As for Chelsea, the failure to land Luka Modric was a blow, but the capture of the prodigiously gifted Juan Mata could more than compensate.

It's obviously too early to pass judgment on whether Andre Villas-Boas's tactical and motivational savvy can inflict serious damage in England. He is half the age of Ferguson - but he has a tiny fraction of the master's CV.