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Ryan Giggs: Bar will be raised this season

As Jose Mourinho begins a new Premiership season with more than £100 million of injured talent, Ryan Giggs argues that the title may be decided by which team gets more of their footballers on to the pitch.

Both Manchester United and Chelsea started Sunday's Community Shield shorn of key performers but, with Owen Hargreaves and Nani approaching match fitness and Carlos Tevez due to make his United debut tomorrow, the champions look in slightly better health.

Crucially, while the central defensive partnership of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic that did so much to wrest the title back have been in erratic form, they are still together. Edwin van der Sar's three penalty saves at Wembley would also have given him confidence.

After scoring his first goal at Wembley in a Manchester United shirt, 15 years after he first appeared there, Giggs reflected: "We have plenty of attacking flair, but we don't get carried away with that. The fact is that defences win championships.

"The defence won us the championship last year and that gives us a platform for these attacking players to go on and produce. We know we have good attacking options, but we also know we've got to defend well."

United's defensive record as the season reached its climax, with the last 17 matches producing just four clean sheets, does not appear that impressive. However, this was achieved with Sir Alex Ferguson's back four ruined by injury - in none of those matches was the United manager able to field his first-choice defence. Yet in that period United lost only one Premiership match.

"It could come down to injuries to settle it between us and Chelsea," Giggs said. "We both got injuries last season and it depends on who copes best. In the end, we coped quite well.

"This season the squad should be able to adapt a bit better. I think the bar will go higher this season; the squads and the players have got better in recent years, especially since Arsenal set the precedent by going through the season unbeaten."

Giggs is now 33, and the arrival of further attacking options such as Nani and Carlos Tevez might have given the Welshman cause to wonder just how long he had left at Old Trafford. The response he gave, both at the end of last season when claiming his ninth Premiership title and in the Community Shield, suggests the sun is not yet setting on his playing career.

"Manchester United has always been about playing with width and having players who can change a game, and we have four or five who can do that now," he said.

"I hope I have some experience to offer to new players. The squad is young at the moment, but we've also got the players who have been here a while - myself, Scholes, Neville, Van der Sar. These are players who have done it."