They finished 6th but they still won a legit trophy to attain CL which was their priority. Your argument will only hold good if United underperform next year too but this season, they had a lucky escape and they managed to attain their objective. I wouldn't call it a successful season but in the end considering all the struggles , it turned out to be a pretty decent year for them. With CL attained, they have the leverage to buy star players now.
If they don't improve on this season, then I'll surely have a laugh and mock at them too.
They only started to care about the EL when they realized they have no chance for Top 4 in Britain. We were furious after EL exit with Benfica because we crashed out of the CL group stage the same season, winning EL was the way to at least partially hide the shame. Plus, the final was at our stadium. Instead, we put even more disgrace to our club by losing to the Portuguese.
United have been buying star players no matter CL or not. Has it helped them? No. Anyway, adding celebrities to their roster in not the way to go. They would need to start building the team like Juve did few years back. We were all saying shit about Marotta that all he does is buying depth instead of
just buying 2 star players per season. Turns out Beppe was right.
I think ManU have lost their identity. All they do now is buying some random overhyped, overpaid players. They look like City, Psg and Chelsea just after the take overs from rich owners. I still expect 3-4 years before they become truly relevant.