I don't see us winning the title, but last year showed that LvG is excellent when it comes to the big games, and I'm pretty confident about the big games this season. It's beating the smaller teams, with our lack of goals, that's going to be the issue, as you said.
With how solid our defence have been, if that continues, Schweinsteiger / Carrick and Schneiderlin shutting off the centre, Shaw and Darmian the flanks and when they get through we have the centre backs, if we keep De Gea and he maintains his form then I don't think we will need to score too many, with such a solid seven I can see us taking the lead consistently (even if it is hard work) and after that when the small teams must attack there is the space we need.
Southampton had the second best defence in the premier league conceding one less than Chelsea, I think this was the reason a squad that should have finished in the bottom half mounted a serious challenge for top four.
A lot depends on the window, Pedro will help our attack, keeping De Gea etc. I'm not thinking of the title but I am hoping for 86 points, Louis van Gaal got 52 points in the 23 match run last season starting after that awful first 10 matches and ending with the Chelsea loss, that same form for 38 matches is 86 points.
I also think the league could be more competitive, a lot of the smaller teams have spent due to the increased funds, who knows, the top four might drop more points from winning positions than usual because of the increased strength of the smaller teams when they must attack, a potentially solid defence could reduce this compared to the top four rivals, the reverse is also true though, they might be even harder to break down.
I think it depends on whether we can get that first goal to put us ahead consistently and if not then how effective our plan B (possibly to Fellaini or throwing Hernandez on) will be in the last fifteen minutes to scrape the win.
(Oh yeah, we also have a good bench I think, Herrera has come on in the last two matches to control the game when we've been ahead, this helps protect our lead thus potentially decreasing the amount of dropped points from winning positions, I thought Ferguson used the likes of Scholes and Giggs to help get control of the game when ahead and close it out well).