The transfer of midfielder Juan Mata from Chelsea to Manchester United is about to go through pending a medical for a record fee in the region of £37?million.

It will be a club-record fee for United whose previous record was the £30?million they paid for Dimitar Berbatov in 2008. It is a great deal for Chelsea. It’s a lot of money, but Mata is a very good player and I don’t doubt his ability.

Manchester United are a different kettle of fish, I’ve seen many a good player go to Manchester United and not live up to expectations because of the pressure and all that is expected from you. I think a young player coming through United’s ranks probably stands a better chance than a player they paid millions and millions of pounds for.

Having said that, I hope Mata does make it. He’s in the Spanish national team and for him to keep his place in that team with the World Cup coming up, he will need to be playing every week, which wasn’t happening at Chelsea. I’m sure that was on his mind when the interest was shown by United. Let’s hope it is a win-win situation for both parties.

If you are a good player, you should be able to play anywhere and good players make adjustments. The top clubs in England don’t usually like to sell their best players to their main rivals, but anything is possible with the right price. United resisted interest from Chelsea for Wayne Rooney last summer, but they did let Cristiano Ronaldo go to Real Madrid, just like Arsenal did sell Robin van Persie to United last season.

United will need to hang on to Rooney and Van Persie and have them playing again if they are to make a push for Champions League qualification. It will be interesting to see how they play Mata because Rooney plays in the No?10 spot as well. Are they going to stick Mata right up front with Van Persie? I like two players, or three, up front rather than one when you ask that person to do too much donkey work.

Manchester United have such a high reputation, people like George Best, Dennis Law, Bobby Charlton, Ryan Giggs and Duncan Edwards with the ghosts of some of the greats probably still lingering around Old Trafford. It gives the present players so much to live up to.

Retaining their league title looks very unlikely and even a top-four finish will be a good accomplishment for them. They have even dropped down to fourth in terms of the world’s highest earning clubs. Who knows, Mata may come in and change everything around for them.

The race for the top four spots will be fierce, with Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton also in the running behind Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea. I still think City will win the league because of the quality they have. If everybody stays healthy, City will be the team to beat this year.

My top three will be City, Chelsea and Arsenal and then one spot between Liverpool, Everton and Spurs. It is going to be tough for United to make up the six points between fourth place and themselves in seventh. A Champions League without Manchester United will seem strange but if anybody could make it up, it would be them.

However, with 14 points separating them from the leaders, they can kiss the league title goodbye. That will be too big a gap to close. As I tell people about the English league, anybody on any given day can beat anybody.

Just look at the League Cup this week, Sunderland going to United and pulling off victory in the second leg of the semi-final, which was a tremendous result, although there were a lot of bad kicks from the penalty spot. Everybody just whacked the ball as hard as they could, nobody picking their spot. United paid for not having a Giggs or a Scholes, a Rooney or a Van Persie. Those are the cool heads in a penalty situation.