Manchester United: it got worse!
Data is from FBRef, except for shots outside the box, which are from WhoScored.
Manchester United finished 15th in the Premier League.
Manchester United. Fifteenth.
This is Manchester United!
And at the same time, no one seems too surprised.
If we’re being real, everyone in football media could just keep publishing the same Manchester United article, swap out a few names, and it’d be mostly accurate. I’ve certainly done it myself. If you’d allow me to be incredibly self-indulgent for a moment, let’s journey back.
“United’s commercial revenue hasn’t risen for years, while their more successful rivals on the pitch keep growing.
[…]
United cannot simply keep trying to spend their way out of trouble forever. Liverpool broke the British transfer record to sign [Stan] Collymore without a clue how to use him in 1995, then United did the same thing with Paul Pogba 21 years later. Now they’re going to have to do it the smart way against intelligent opponents with similar or greater resources.
More importantly, United have to get everything around the manager right before being in that league. Neither Klopp nor Guardiola would have won the Premier League at Man Utd these past five years. The structure of the club has to be modernised properly. Everyone is pulling in the same direction at those other clubs. Ten Hag has to be the most important cog in the machine, but he can’t be the machine itself. We’ve seen how trying to do that turns out.”
“So what’s the plan here? I know this could be asked at literally any point since Sir Alex Ferguson retired with no good answer. But how are they aiming to balance the needs of today with the needs of tomorrow? I don’t think they could tell me.
It’s fine for this to be a transition season for Man Utd. It’s fine for it to be the start of a long process. But they have to be clear about what the main problems are, how they are going to be solved over this period, and how all the decisions made work towards this goal. Otherwise, they’re just going in blind once again.”
“So it’s the same question as ever: what’s the footballing vision at Old Trafford? It almost doesn’t matter which manager they employ as much as it matters to make sure he, Ashworth, Berrada and INEOS are all on the same page. Then make sure the signings fit the profile. If you want my opinion, I think Amorim is probably the “best” manager on this list, though I have concerns that he’s too dogmatic about his playing style.
[…]
This is Manchester United! I mean, this is Manchester United Football Club we’re talking about here! Just getting the basics right with their level of revenues should be enough to climb up the table over time. They have to make a choice. More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. We’re seeing that play out at Old Trafford this season. It’s time to decide what kind of football team they want to be.”
“United do not have an unlimited number of chances to fix things. Each disappointing season gradually eats into the club’s reputation and, ultimately, their ability to generate revenue. The task becomes harder as the years go by and, as such, the question of “how to turn it around” is a little more complicated now than it was a decade ago. Man Utd might have some real obstacles here. INEOS’ main impact since coming in has been to make an endless number of cuts, which doesn’t scream “fuck you, we’re Manchester United”.
I feel like I’ve said that so many times at this point: clarity of thought is everything. They need to work toward a single idea of how to improve the football club on and off the pitch. Every year they’re not competing is a year for the rest to catch up financially. There has to be a plan this time. It has to work. It has to.
Because if it doesn’t, things can always get worse.”
Let’s lay out the facts we’ve established plenty of times now.
Manchester United generate huge revenues comparable to Europe’s elite clubs
Nonetheless, paying dividends to the Glazer family and interest on significant debt taken out has made them relatively cash poor
United have been mismanaged at every level, resulting simultaneously in huge overhead costs and a football operation not fit for the modern game
Poor results on the pitch slowly but surely hurt the club’s commercial revenue as the Man Utd “brand” takes a hit
The Glazers have not taken dividends since 2022, but are free to do so in the future. The debt and interest payments are not going away.
Paying these Glazer costs while spending anything like the required sums on the pitch demands that United keep generating huge revenues
Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS have responded to these financial problems by making a series of cuts and layoffs
“We’re at the end of February”, I wrote at, you guessed it, the end of February. “Man Utd have 11 more Premier League matches along with potential runs in the Europa League and FA Cup to show us something. It doesn’t need to be spectacular, but we need to sit here at the end of the season and be able to say “they’re starting to look more like [a Ruben] Amorim team”.”
United won two of those 11 Premier League games, drawing three and losing six. It’s not the most inspiring set of results I’ve ever seen. They did underperform their expected goals a bit, scoring just 11 times from 16 xG and conceding 15 goals from 12.2 expected. It’s not quite as bad as the results suggest, but it’s also very obviously not good enough. They did get to the Europa League final, beating Real Sociedad, Lyon and Athletic Club to get there. They lost a pretty even game to Spurs in the final, but these things happen. Let’s not make big decisions on the back of 90 minutes against Tottenham.
I was chatting recently to a subscriber to this newsletter who may or may not be my dad. He argued that Amorim lacked the personality and charisma to reinvigorate United, and that someone like Jürgen Klopp would’ve brought more positivity, making the players want to play for him, in turn boosting results. I definitely think that the bad vibes do matter, but I think it would take something incredible for Amorim to change that. Poor results get players down, obviously. But the atmosphere issues at Carrington the AON Training Complex Trafford Training Centre go deeper than that right now.
The non-playing staff are living in fear of layoffs. “The constant threat of redundancies has stalked the atmosphere at Carrington”, Laurie Whitwell explained recently, “and many people believe this has impacted the first-team environment. Players have relationships with those staff members at risk of losing their jobs and that has undermined the attempts to build positive mindsets in the dressing room, according to people familiar with the situation.”
United’s dressing room atmosphere has been poor for a long time. Even in the best of circumstances, changing that would probably require replacing a majority of the squad at this point, while instilling a positive culture. That’s what Klopp did at Liverpool in what was broadly the best of circumstances. This is not that. External forces continue to buzz around the training ground, creating uncertainty. They’re in the middle of a massive organisation overhaul at a time when Amorim needs calm at the training ground.
“I really, really like Ruben”, Ratcliffe said earlier this year. “Every time I go to the training ground, I speak to Ruben. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and tell him where it’s going wrong, and he tells me to fuck off. I like him.” Somehow, I’m not sure the feeling is mutual. For the first time in over a decade, United to have a competent football hierarchy in theory. Amorim is the manager while Jason Wilcox, formerly of Southampton, is the sporting director. Both should “officially” be reporting to Omar Berrada, the Chief Executive Officer, who previously worked as Chief Operating Officer at Manchester City, clearly the most senior official working full time at United. He was hired by Ratcliffe and INEOS, presumably to be the man on the ground putting their strategy in place. That’s not going to work if Amorim can pick up the phone and complain to the owner whenever he doesn’t agree with his boss. Ratcliffe should voice any complaints about the team only to Berrada. It does not work if he’s tinkering. The Glazers didn’t spend nearly enough time in Manchester. Ratcliffe is spending too much time over there.
Amorim’s job security is ultimately going to come down to “does Jim think he’s the man”. I just don’t think that’s a coherent way of making football decisions. Amorim plays a very specific 3-4-3 system that requires players with certain profiles. If we assume at least a little bit of competence (I know, I know), Wilcox and the recruitment team should have spent the last few months targeting signings specifically to suit Amorim’s ideas. Those are going to be pretty different to almost any other coach’s needs. If they were going to change the manager, they needed to decide on that a month ago. They needed to have a replacement lined up by now in order to get the transfer window right. The worst thing they could do is sign players for Amorim’s needs and immediately hire a manager who wants to play a back four.
I don’t think Amorim has done anything to impress me, but as of right now, sacking him would create more problems than it solves. They’re going to have to commit to his vision for the club because, honestly, they don’t have a better option at the moment.
But that doesn’t mean being stupid about it.
Alejandro Garnacho looks set to leave after Amorim told the player he’s not part of next season’s plans. He’s getting and assisting half an expected goal per 90 minutes and he’s 20 years old. Of Premier League players his age or younger, only Man City’s Savinho is taking and assisting more xG. He’s really talented. He does seem to have attitude issues, but what do you expect from a 20 year old emerging in this environment? If the club are not capable of nurturing his talent then they will continue to fail. But the decision has apparently been made, with Matheus Cunha already signed as his replacement.
Cunha’s a better creative passer than Garnacho, but doesn’t run in behind as often, and isn’t the dribbler that United’s outgoing attacker can be. Cunha scored 15 non-penalty goals this season, though he scored them from 8.6 xG. Over the course of his career, he’s outperformed expectations in front of goal by 8%. This season, he beat his xG by 74%. Don’t bet on that lasting. Half his shots came from outside the box, which you’d probably want him to rein in over time. I don’t think he’s a bad player at all, but I’m not sure he’s better than Garnacho right now, and at 26 years old he’s a “buy now” signing at exactly the time when United need to be planning long term. I think he should be a decent contributor next season, but in terms of getting them to where they want to be, this is not a move I would make. A 15th placed club signing a peak age attacker from the 16th placed team doesn’t scream “United are back”.
The club look set to make another very similar move by signing Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford. Yes, he is the player I once pointed out as the closest thing to a “poor man’s [Mohamed] Salah” in the data. “He’s showing good signs of progress at age 24 [he turns 26 this August]”, I wrote in January 2024. “He’s had a few years of xG underperformance that, if you can be confident will not keep plaguing him, probably reduce his transfer fee a bit.”
It did not keep plaguing him. Mbeumo scored at fully double his xG this season, getting 15 non-penalty goals from 7.5 expected. Double your xG isn’t repeatable for anyone, let alone someone who scored fewer than expected in all of his previous Premier League seasons. He also scored five penalties, putting his total at a nice, round 20 goals. He’s going to have to take a lot more close-range shots to repeat those numbers. Both Mbeumo and Cunha are what I would consider above average Premier League attackers. United’s first choice front three will consist of those two and who even knows upfront. It’s better than what they’ve been running out this season, but it’s not a Champions League attack. With Cunha and Mbeumo’s ages, it’s not going to become something more than that, one would think.
Amad Diallo played quite a few minutes this season in the right-sided number ten role presumably earmarked for Mbeumo (I’ve seen some suggest the Brentford player as a centre forward, but that is not his skillset). It doesn’t totally suit him, and in an ideal world he’d probably be a right winger in a more conventional 4-3-3 shape. He has also played as a right wing-back at times, which can improve the balance of the side. “Starting Amad as one of the [tens] leaves you with a starting XI with five recognised defenders in your team”, Man Utd tactics writer Pauly Kwestel wrote. “Add in a defensive midfielder, and that leaves you with just four attacking players.” Moving Amad to right wing-back does solve this, but I think it could create other problems. Amad and Mbeumo are both left footers, looking to cut inside into the same space. If the right-sided ten is left footed, then I think the right wing-back needs to stay wide on a dominant right foot. Amad and Mbeumo on that flank could run into the same spaces. I’m not sure it helps if this signing holds back a 22 year-old genuinely exciting attacker.
United’s other reported aims this summer are “an athletic No 8-type midfielder, and strengthening in the wing-back area”. Bruno Fernandes turning down a big money move to Saudi Arabia – and the club’s obvious happiness to keep him – pretty much locks in that he will be a regular starter in central midfield again. Fernandes is obviously someone who will take risks and play forward passes often, and finding a midfield partner to complement that is hard. The wing-back issues shouldn’t be impossible to solve because plenty of players out there have the skillset, even if it’s not a system many teams play at the highest level. We’ve all watched modern full backs who can bomb down the flank but get caught out at the back. They’re good for Amorim.
I would ultimately like more risk in these signings than the club are showing with Cunha and Mbeumo. Now is absolutely not the time to play it safe and consolidate. This season should be regarded as the absolute worst case scenario. It can only go up. Sign younger and hungrier players ready for Amorim to mould, with the hope that they might be among the league’s best in four years or so. Cunha and Mbeumo are already in their peak years and won’t see huge improvements. In four years’ time, both players will be turning 30 and probably coming towards the end of their best seasons. I don’t know why the club are trying to get “win now” players at this juncture. It’s going to be a long and tough rebuild. You can’t take shortcuts.
I’m writing the same article again. Every time Man Utd dance through the same cycle of mistakes, their wiggle room to get it right next time shrinks. If they have not meaningfully progressed on the pitch in four years’ time, the finances will get tighter, and the risk that they won’t bounce back increases. There were so many better opportunities to fix things than right now. But this is what they’ve got.
Please, for the love of god, don’t make me write the same article again. I’m so bored.
So many United fans I’ve chatted to love the Mbeumo signing especially and I really don’t get it. I remember Carl Anka saying on a podcast that Dorgu is the type of signing that INEOS want to make. Begging that Cunha and Mbeumo are the exceptions and not the norm