Nah...
Doomed is when Pulis arrived, we had just been through Holloway and Warnock with a Championship standard squad. This was just an awful start to the season.
We were probably worse when Allardyce came in last season too.
United have needed to rebuild more though, plus City have made a fair bit back from sales of players that haven't worked out for them, apart from Di Maria I can't think of any other players that United have made a sum back from (granted I only brainwaved for 30 seconds).
I read a statistic the other day, this United team had accumulated more points than any other team at the top at this stage of the season bar one season, yet they find themselves eleven points adrift.
Not much you can do when you're competing against a team like that with unlimited resources.
His style of football really ain't that bad, the only eye bleeding boring football I can recall is his first year in the PL with West Ham and his stint with an awful Sunderland side. Bolton were far from boring, people just remember Kevin Davies and Kevin Nolan. Blackburn weren't boring neither...
There was contact on Zaha's foot for the penalty, certainly enough to bring him down.
Dunno why you're singling him out, he went down when he was fouled, ain't his fault being manhandled is usually the only way to get the ball off his feet.