Manchester United would not normally be a title contender, but after crazy 2020 they could be …

He wasn’t supposed to come this season, and certainly not under the current, much-maligned coach.

But in this crazy year of years that it has been 2020, it seems that this chaotic and exciting Manchester United team, under the tutelage or capricious leadership of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, could still pose a significant challenge to Liverpool’s title.

If United win their match in hand, which will be against Burnley when the Premier League programmers get underway, United would be second in the table, two points behind Liverpool, high heights for a team whose manager still has more detractors than fans.

The caveat to United’s position, however, is that the environment in which football is played at the moment is far from normal and is having a major effect on some rather peculiar results.

Aside from relentless champion Liverpool, none of the other four main regular rivals have enjoyed anything like the first third of a season they would normally expect.

Arsenal are in 15th place having won a league game in their last 10 attempts, Tottenham have fallen after showing early promise, Chelsea’s form has deserted them in recent weeks, while normally prolific Manchester City languishes in the seventh, as a result of their extravagance in front of goal.

What’s more, the way United have moved up the table is also out of the ordinary. United have come from behind to win every away game this season, a new top flight record, and are only the third team in Premier League history to win their first six away games of a season. , after Chelsea in 2008-09 and Manchester. City in 2017-18.

That contrasts with its home shape. Before Leeds’s annihilation on Sunday, they had scored just one open-play goal in six Premier League home games, and only managed one league win at Old Trafford.

But Solskjaer can only beat what is in front of him and he ticks two important boxes.

The form of the comeback victories has been tremendously exciting, with United playing exhilarating football, scoring goals galore.

Against Leeds, United flew out of the traps and scored their fastest Premier League goal in more than eight years, but did not take their foot off the gas. Yes, in the back they looked vulnerable and needed David de Gea to rescue them on several occasions, but the display of attack mentality, going head-to-head with Leeds high pressure, was another fun spectacle, and it is not. Is that what football is about?

In a new dent in the naysayers’ quest to see Solskjaer replaced by Mauricio Pochettino, on paper, Solskjaer is producing the results.

United made significant progress towards the end of last season to climb back up the table and snatch a third place spot on the final day, guiding United back to the Champions League.

And now, after a stuttering start to the current campaign, United have won six of their last seven in the league to emerge as a surprise challenger in the title race.

Calling a club the size and stature of United a surprise title challenger may seem somewhat odd, but this United team, under Solskjaer, supposedly in a transition phase, was supposed to be a top four contender, in instead of a chaser from the top.

But, emerging from the flames of hell that 2020 became, 2021 promises more uncertainty, on and off the pitch.

It’s just a matter of staying in the title race until March, when the world can be a calmer place. Then the real title race can begin. And United, for the moment, appear to be better prepared than anyone to once again rival their old enemies, Liverpool.