United are way behind, admits Cole

ANDY Cole believes Manchester United are “a few years behind” the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City.

The Old Trafford giants have stumbled since Sir Alex Ferguson went out with a bang in 2013, when he retired on the back of his 13th Premier League crown.

United have failed to launch a sustained title bid since then and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side currently sit an eye-watering 37 points behind leaders Liverpool, who are on the cusp of their first league win since 1990.

Cole is confident that United will not have to wait that long to taste glory again, but the club great knows the path back to the top is unlikely to be straightforward.

“Football is a cycle,” the former striker told the Counter Attack podcast.

“Losing Sir Alex Ferguson, him retiring, the next manager, whoever was going to step in, was going to find it really, really difficult.

“I wouldn’t liked to have followed him as the manager and that’s what it’s been. It’s been very much trial and error, changing managers and all that.

“But on the flipside, if you look at Liverpool, it’s taken Liverpool 30 years to win the Premier League obviously not the Premier League, but the main league.

“I don’t think it’ll take Manchester United 30 years to win the league again, but we’re still a few years behind the Liverpools and the Manchester Citys.

“Once you close the gap, things will change. Naturally things will change.

“But then the gap will change and some of the other teams that get involved in trying to win the Premier League.”

Cole currently works as forward coach for Southend in addition to his ambassadorial role with United, three years on from undergoing a life-saving kidney transplant.

“I work with it,” he said of his health. “There’s good, there’s bad, there’s indifferent.

“There’s some days that I can’t have it and there’s other days where I’m turning around and saying to myself ‘yeah, it’s half decent today.’”