Gary Neville still believes that Manchester City are favourites for the Premier League title despite his former club United signing Cristiano Ronaldo.

Before the start of the season, the Sky Sports pundit predicted that City would finish first, and he has said he is sticking with his verdict:

“I made the prediction that it would be Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United [in that order] and I’m not going to change that because of the signing of Ronaldo, I’m going to stick with that because I don’t think the Ronaldo signing makes them a better team than Chelsea, who were the Champions League winners last season, or Manchester City, who were 20 points clear.”

Neville seems to think that the strength of Pep Guardiola’s side, as well as Chelsea and Liverpool, means United’s chances of winning the league have not improved that much even though they have Ronaldo in their ranks.

City’s 5-0 win over Arsenal yesterday certainly made a statement about their intentions to retain the title, and while they are deserving favourites, as Neville points out, it is likely to be a much tougher challenge to come out on top this campaign.

Guardiola’s men face Leicester straight after the international break, while they also play Chelsea and Liverpool over the next month so we will have a better gauge of where they are at in the not too distant future.