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Having lost out on the Premier League title to neighbours Manchester City on goal difference, the Sunday Mirror’s David Walker believes Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has boosted his team’s firepower to make sure there will be no repeat this season. The addition of Robin van Persie – last season’s Premier League top scorer – from Arsenal to a forward line of Wayne Rooney (the league’s second-highest goalscorer in 2011-12), Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernández means Man Utd now have a formidable four-man strikeforce that will no doubt have many defences running scared.

“Alex Ferguson definitely sat down after Manchester United finished second and analysed the whole campaign, and one of the things he realised they needed was more firepower. He believed that if he could have increased the goal count for them, they would have won the league last year,” says David on the reasoning behind the signing of Shinji Kagawa and, crucially, Van Persie. “Now he’s worked on that, he’s shown the Glazers: ‘This is the guy I want, he will deliver.’ He’s got the response he wanted from that.”

David feels that having four top strikers will send an ominous signal to Man Utd’s rivals. ”I also think that it’s a basic fact with Fergie’s great teams: when he’s won European Cups he has used four strikers. The last time they had a really strong attack, you had Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov all competing. That’s what he’s trying to recreate. And that’s where Man Utd get stronger.”

Watch the full video discussion by clicking on the play button in the image above. 

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