Man Utd news: Gary Neville makes surprising claim about Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola

That is the verdict of Gary Neville.

Manchester City enjoyed a sublime campaign and broke a raft of records along the way, including becoming the first team to amass an unprecedented 100 points in a season, beating Chelsea’s previous effort of 95 in the 2004/05 campaign.

City also managed 32 wins from their 38 games and hit 106 goals too.

Across town, Manchester United failed to keep up with the relentless pace of their neighbours and finished 19 points behind their rivals in the runners-up spot.

While Neville accepts City have played a vibrant brand of football, he reckons that Mourinho could supplant Guardiola if he delivers title success next term.

“What City have done – the way they’ve done it and the points difference – that’s the pressure on the football [at United], that there’s this almost complete, pure football being played at City and United play differently,” Neville told the Daily Telegraph.

“If, at the end of next season, Pep wins another league, that will be a big problem [for United], but if Jose was to win the league next year you could actually argue Jose has done the better job.

“So next season will be critical in establishing the job each manager has done in Manchester.”

While there have been stern critics of Mourinho’s style, Neville insists it wasn’t always good even during the glory days under Sir Alex Ferguson.

“But from 2003 to 2006, it wasn’t good. I played in that team, it wasn’t good,” he added.

“We weren’t playing at a high level. We were pretty average at that time.

“So you think about this three-year period or so now and what are you measuring against? Sir Alex’s 1999 treble winners or the 2003-2006 period when the football was pretty poor and Jose Mourinho was at Chelsea and destroying us?”