When will United be good again?
Remember when Manchester United finished as Premier League and Europa League runners-up in the 2020-21 season? You know, the last season that United were objectively good with a path to be great.
That second-place finish was tied with the 2017-18 season for the best finish the club has had since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. However, it was woefully behind United’s noisy neighbors both times. United were 12 points short in May of 2021 and 19 points short of The Centurions in May of 2018.
Tragically, ironically, depressingly, United would part ways with Ole Gunnar Solskjær nearly six months after that second-place finish, just like they did with Jose Mourinho when Solskjær first took over as caretaker.
Had Alexis Sanchez joined United in the summer of 2018 instead of that January, then the parallels with the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of Solskjær’s final months would honestly be too unbearable, and I would’ve scrapped this entire preamble.
Now, notice I wrote earlier that United were good and not great that season. That team was even in first place in January 2021, and I desperately pleaded on The Busby Babe podcast to throw every other competition away and go for it. THEY EVEN WENT UNBEATEN AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY IN THE LEAGUE TWO YEARS IN A ROW, WITH A 2-0 VICTORY AT THE ETIHAD IN THE SPRING.
Ultimately, United were just not capable of deploying total carnage in the second half of the campaign to keep up with City.
But the team was good enough to have us dreaming of brighter horizons! So, what did that team do well? They were relatively effective at scoring goals, and they played solid defense. A successful formula that we all really miss.
The attack produced 73 goals – second only to City’s 83 – and finished above their season xG of 60.1. Not too shabby. Defensively, they conceded only 44 goals, which ranked as the fifth fewest goals, compared to an xGA of 40.4, which ranked fourth best. Their plus-29 goal differential ranked above everyone in the league except for City’s eye-watering plus-51. Remember what I said? A good team, not a great team.
Importantly, the team also had vibes to package with its statistical success.
A world-class, elite player worthy of naming your pets and children after? Check. Multiple double-digit goal scorers? Check. Ascending academy graduates? Check. Lockdown individual defenders that could trap another team’s best player in 90 minutes of absolute hell? Check.
Unfortunately for everyone, the pattern of getting to the current benchmark of good was broken in 2023-24. To be fair to Erik ten Hag, he got United a trophy and a third-place finish a year early. However, he then only mustered an eighth-place finish (and a trophy) the season he should’ve been finishing second as his near-sighted and ill-advised recruitment strategy caught up to him. Now, we all must continue to endure the ramifications while he takes over a really competent Bayer Leverkusen.
We’ll see you in the Europa Conference League, someday, you bald fraud (kidding).
So, how long is it going to take to get back to good ?
The two second-place seasons provide an interesting contrast. Mourinho’s team scored only two fewer goals than Solskjær’s team, and they were absolutely monstrous on defense, conceding only 28 (TWENTY EIGHT) goals. In a hyper-competitive top-6 that season, United were the best of the rest because they suffocated the league. Meanwhile, Solskjær’s United, which had more than a few Mourinho players on it, was well positioned to take advantage of a weaker league while playing the counter-attacking hits of Fergusonian yesteryear.
With Liverpool winning the Premier League with 84 points in 2024-25, only two fewer points than City in the 2020-21 campaign, and a shuffling of top-6 members, it’s not impossible that United could finish better than the likely midtable projection they’ll receive.
Let me be the first to say that I think that is very improbable, and, possibly, detrimental, to the proper rebuilding project that needs to happen. After all, sacking managers successively after second-place finishes would suggest that the United Industrial Complex (the club, the coaches, the players, you, me) is prone to get over its skis after the slightest taste of success.
Squad vibe check
Right now, it looks like Ruben Amorim will only coach five players from the 2020-21 first team in the coming year: Amad Diallo, Diogo Dalot, Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw.
Fernandes, miraculously, has not lost his magic touch as the talisman of the team, and he has ascended as a truly worthy United captain. He is United’s best player, but he is desperate for some help picking up the slack. Amad was a supernova for United this past season. A young player purchased in the January transfer window of that 2020-21 season, funnily enough, to be stashed away for later. He showed this past season that he can be a floor raiser, a slack picker-upper for Fernandes, and a gamebreaker – just ask Southampton.
Maguire has emerged from a particularly dark period that would break most footballers, and he has returned to a position of importance for the defense. Shaw, unfortunately, is a shell of himself from four years ago, and he turns 30 this year. The sun is likely done rising on his career and is instead going down, and we should all take the time to celebrate what he’s overcome before he departs. Dalot plays a lot of minutes, in various positions, offering varying levels of impact with the opportunity to really influence the team’s performance because of the importance of fullbacks in Amorim’s system.
Looking at the rest of the squad, the defense might be the closest to rounding back into an acceptable form.
Maguire and Matthjis de Ligt set the floor for the central defense. Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven flashed real potential for both being 18-year-olds thrown into the fire without even a chance to be in the frying pan. Patrick Dorgu is handpicked by Amorim to be a wingback in his system, Dalot does Dalot things, and Noussair Mazraoui can do a job out wide and in the central defense.
The biggest questions for the defense: Is Lisandro Martinez ever going to be the same after returning from another devastating injury? Does Harry Amass take the next step as a promising academy prospect? Will United make another change at goalkeeper?
Contrary to popular belief, I think Onana is fine enough, at least for now. It’s very likely that he won’t be the man between the pipes when United lift the Premier League trophy again, but, in terms of next season, United have massive positional needs all over the pitch, and replacing the goalkeeper feels like a luxury – especially if an improved backline can limit the attempts that he can bobble.
The midfield is a mess. It’s always been a mess. Every summer, we all write a complaint for this website or voice a complaint for the podcast about the state of the midfield. At least we can take solace in knowing Bruno’s place is chiseled in stone.
After that, it’s real dicey, real fast. Last summer’s darling Kobbie Mainoo is not the manager’s favorite, and, unfairly to Mainoo, the club needs to quickly decide if the 20-year-old has a place in the team or if his sale is going to raise the funds for a new deputy to Fernandes. Then, you’ve got Casemiro who requires 7-10 business days to recharge his batteries because he’s just played so much damn ball at this point. Mason Mount has yet to play double-digit league matches in a season. Manuel Ugarte smash. But what else?
United decided to be the club that rewarded Matheus Cunha for his exceptional two-season arc with Wolverhampton Wanderers. During the 2023-24 season, Cunha netted 12 goals on a 9.6 xG while assisting seven more goals on an xG of 3.2. The Brazilian erupted this past season with 15 goals on an 8.6 xG while assisting six more.
I imagine Amorim hopes Cunha will take some of the creative weight off of Fernandes, slotting centrally as a second No. 10 who will play more forward and double as a second striker. The opportunity for Cunha to also combine out wide with the wingbacks is an option outlined in Statman Dave’s analysis.
Incoming saviors?
Ultimately, this team needs to score more goals, and they need to do it in a hurry. Unfortunately, this club is still in massive debt, and any aggressive purchasing in the transfer market is going to give off burrito loan vibes.
Bryan Mbeumo appears poised to join United along with his 20 goals on a 12.3 xG and seven assists for Brentford last season. Mbeumo is another player like Cunha who overperformed massively with a mid-table side, and he also feels like the kind of player whose next step would be United if it were a different era. He also potentially fills a huge need in bringing in another right-sided attacker.
Is it good sense to recruit players who do more with less, considering United struggles to create chances? Is it a massive gamble to recruit players who could also experience a huge statistical regression, amplifying the scrutiny that they will automatically face as a forward at United? Yes and yes. Fingers crossed it works out!
And then there is the news of a possible move for Ollie Watkins if Rasmus Højlund leaves the club.
The 29-year-old has been a solid goalscorer for Aston Villa, and it’s easy to see how desirable it would be for United to bring in a certifiably proven in the crucible of the Premier League striker with multiple consecutive seasons of double-digit goals under his belt. Considering the dice roll/narrative around strikers from outside leagues trying to make it in the Premier League, this feels like a pragmatic recruitment, especially since a repeat output from United’s striker position last year cannot happen again. It also kind of feels like we’re helping Villa cash out on a player who could be exiting his prime.
Will United have enough depth if they get their way with the currently reported business in the transfer market this summer? In this scenario of United getting their guys, you’ll also see four forwards depart United.
So, Watkins, Cunha, and Mbeumo will hopefully provide more consistency in front of goal, and they’ll have help from Amad, Joshua Zirkzee, and 17-year-old Chido Obi-Martin. The fullbacks of Dorgu, Dalot, Mazraoui (and sometimes Amad) will have a lot of responsibility to provide most of the width and a lot of service.
I’m not saying this can’t work. I just have some reservations based on health. Honestly, thank god United are not playing in Europe this year, even if I thought that performance in the Europa League Final was inexcusable.
Let’s buckle down and try to find some joy amongst the struggle
When is the team going to be good? When the floor is raised by the head coach and the coaching is tailored to his players’ strengths. When a critical mass of floor-raising players consistently takes the field. When enough depth is brought in so that the team doesn’t die out shortly after Valentine’s Day, when it’s playing in Europe again.
As it stands, Omar Berrada’s Project 150 that sees United winning the whole damn thing by 2028 feels exceptionally aggressive. I think that’s the soonest that United will be sniffing a runners-up position because even if United do everything correctly, there is a lot of competition for the European places.
Simply put, this club just straight up needs time to recoup money and multiple transfer windows to cycle in more depth. We only have two summers (and two winters if you want to count those as consequential times for business) before the start of the 2027-28 season.
I know it feels very existential, but allow me to offer some experience as someone who has a history of rooting for bad teams. It is possible to find joy in the struggle. In some ways, this is an exciting time for United if the INEOS plan works. We’re going to celebrate more cult heroes like Amad as new, young players are called up or brought in. We’ll have the opportunity to defy expectations positively again. We will earn the proverbial greener pastures.
We must find opportunities to enjoy the progression. A lot of consensus suggested this season was United’s rock bottom. If that was the case, let’s all be humble enough to realize and remember how bad it can get, to not rush the process, and to truly enjoy the success when it comes…
…in a couple more years.