Schmeichel made his Villa debut on Saturday in their InterToto Cup win over Slaven Belupo, and insists the Midlanders can make a dramatic improvement on their finishing position of eighth from last season.

But it is the Kidd inspiration that the great Dane sees as the telling influence on a much tighter title race than last season.

Schmeichel said: "Teams like Liverpool, Leeds and Arsenal are going to push United hard this season.

"But I feel Leeds will offer the biggest threat. They have got a good combination of very good English players and obviously fine foreign players.

"They also have a good manager, and a good assistant in Brian Kidd, who I worked with for more than seven years at United and I know what he can do.

"So I think that Leeds are the team who will push Manchester United, but I still think United will win the Premiership."

Schmeichel’s views are the second snub this summer from the Danish ace, who when he first joined Villa insisted that he could never contemplate returning to the English game and signing for a club like Liverpool, who are such bitter rivals of United.

Now Schmeichel says he reckons Leeds will do better in the title race than last term’s treble winners from Anfield, who pipped Leeds for the third Champions League spot.

But he still sees United as the untouchables, and points to their strong British base to the squad as one of the reasons.

He said: "I still think United will win the championship, but I don’t think it will be as easy as last season.

"They have the combination of players to do well in the Premiership and to do well in Europe, but to win the title you need a lot of British-born players.

"They have been born into the game here. In the Premiership you are expected to win every game, to get something out of each match whereas to play in Europe you need some European flavour.

"The combination of the players that Manchester United have is for me the best in the country."

As for his new club, Schmeichel claims: "Villa are a big club and they were very disappointed with being eighth last season. A club of this size should be more than eighth so we qualify for Europe and we don’t have to play InterToto Cups again to get into Europe.

"We have to push United, Leeds, Liverpool and Arsenal, and if we do that we will do really well.

"It’s a competitive league with a lot of teams in the same kind of position as us, we must play well in every game and take something from every game, to improve on last season. I think it can be done and I know it can be done."