Our starting xi was this:
De Gea
Valencia Ferdinand Evans Evra
Nani Jones Carrick Young
Rooney Welbeck
Other players who got significant minutes were Hernandez, Giggs, Smalling and Scholes (pretty much in that order). De Gea also had a pretty terrible 1st season and lost his place to Lindegaard for a while. Evra and Ferdinand hadn't lost it yet but they were definitely past their absolute primes and 2013/14 they were both done. Rooney and Carrick were definitely our best players at this stage with Nani also at his best. A massive responsibility was put on Wayne to provide our goals even with Chicharito and Welbeck also putting in respectable numbers (Berbatov also got a surprisingly excellent 7 league goals despite barely playing). Frankly, I think the suggestion that that team was so much better than this one is pretty ludicrous. The standard of lower teams in the PL is also significantly higher now than then imo due to how much money the lower teams have now vs then.