I don't quite agree with you, to be honest. You can't blame your league position on the form under AVB because you actually got slightly more points per game in the league before he was sacked.
If you win the CL, I'd agree that you deserve a lot of credit and would've done better than City however.
Also, of course you have a stronger squad than us, Newcastle and Arsenal as you pay way more for it. I'd disagree with you on United though, they had pretty much the same squad last season and won the League as well as getting to the CL Final and this season still deserve credit for finishing with 89 points this season. To be so close to the title without two first choice players in Vidic and Fletcher for pretty much the whole season shows their strength in depth.
We didn't have the fixture back-log under AVB that we had under Robbie though did we? So yes we CAN blame our league position on that.

