Manchester United: dredging the data for reasons to be cheerful
Is there hope in the details for the Red Devils?
As this newsletter moves into its nineties, I’m minded to think back to the decade in which I grew up and watched my football club win its two most recent major trophies in a competition very much not considered major anymore.
In the early days of the Premier League, English football had a big bad red monster. Manchester United were terrifying. Blackburn Rovers might have snuck past them at the top on one occasion but Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils were impossibly, monolithically, difficult to topple.
It was horrible watching our teams against them. They might swat us away like a fly. They might toy with us for ninety minutes and then score. But they were, as a rule, going to beat us. Manchester United were The Empire.
Those days are gone. At first, it seemed temporary. Later, it looked as if a good United season would be better than a good season for most of us and return a trophy or two, but that their infallible aura was a thing of the past.
Now, Manchester United feel like the rest of the Premier League in a lot of ways. I can’t imagine it’ll be that way forever. This week, I’m looking at the (basic, easily available) numbers for clues that suggest a way back to the top.
Don’t miss this week’s Beefy Bites!
Manchester United: dredging the data for reasons to be cheerful
Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, vacating the Manchester United manager job he’d excelled in since 1986. Ferguson’s United cleaned up for decades, winning the first two Premier League titles and another eleven to boot. They won the UEFA Champions League twice, the FA Cup five times and the League Cup four times.
In short, they were one of the great dynastic outfits in the history of world football. Ferguson’s famed ability to refresh and renew delivered title after title. Since he retired, he’s been looking down from the directors’ box at Old Trafford at a succession of successors who’ve ranged from the hamstrung to the ludicrous.
Laughing stock is a relative term in football. United mightn’t have reached that level in the last eleven years but they’ve been closer than they ever should.
The whole club seems to be affected by a glory hangover, from the hated Glazer family right down to a phenomenal array of signings, some of whom have been reckless or stupid acquisitions and others – many, many others – who just haven’t had much of the Manchester Uniteds about them.
This has been fertile ground for schadenfreude. The Ferguson era was a long and painful one for a league full of teams who suffered decades of stoppage time winners and imperious title marches.
Today, Old Trafford is a less happy place for United and a less scary one for everyone else. Whatever else United have lost since Ferguson stepped down, it’s the fear factor that’s most profoundly absent.
Residual successes remain. But the dark cloud that hangs over the Stretford End is more mundane than occasional flashes of brilliance or failure. It’s the prospect that Manchester United might end up ordinary.
The club’s ability to knock out a Europa League here and an FA Cup there shouldn’t be ignored, though. They are the glimmers of hope that are always there for United as one of the most popular and most successful football clubs on the planet. As an institution, it will never lack the clout to be justifiably optimistic that a recovery – a return to the pinnacle of the game – is possible.
At the time of writing, United have just won handsomely against Southampton. That’s the thing about the Red Devils. They’re seldom far away from getting something right and putting some results together.
Winning 3-0 at St Mary’s is about par for teams expecting to finish in the top four. United’s problem is the tendency to drop a big ol’ triple bogey in the next game.
The weekend concluded with United in tenth place in the fledgling Premier League table. It’s far too early to draw conclusions about the season’s destiny. Bobbing around in the middle of the division leaves room for almost anything to happen.
With new investment and a retooled football infrastructure, Manchester United is a club at a crossroads. Success, disaster or stasis awaits under the guidance of Ineos Sport.
The stakes are sky-high. Ineos and United are both big hitters and anything but titles will be unacceptable to those inside and outside Old Trafford. The elite must be elite.
Erik ten Hag is the elephant in the room, openly unwanted and backed with all the conviction of a wet paper bag. Maybe none of the positives matter without a change of United manager. Maybe he can crack it. I doubt it. It’s obvious that the club hierarchy doubts it too. Either way, the outlook must extend beyond the limits of 2024/25 without actually writing off the season.
Ten Hag and United have some handles worth grabbing in the short-term. Some of their more experienced players need to sharpen up, certainly, but there is hope in the performance of the youngsters in the early part of this season. It’s a good thing, too – United’s average age is the fifth youngest in the league.
Nobody needs to be told that Kobbie Mainoo is an exciting prospect but the level to which he’s performing as a highly capable midfielder in a team that’s not without its failings might be lost to the broader public analysis.
Mainoo ranks near the top of the Premier League for tackles, while 13 interceptions puts him in first place overall. He’s also joint second for successful take-ons, level with Jeremy Doku and behind only Adama Traoré and Mohammed Kudus. Note the positional difference; Mainoo is a top-class all-rounder and he’s delivering.
One of the big talking points of the last weeks of summer has been Ten Hag’s use, or lack thereof, of Alejandro Garnacho. The 20-year-old is among the most efficient attackers in the Premier League. He’s first overall for non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes (npxG/90). Even with penalties added into the equation he’s only behind Erling Haaland.
Garnacho ranks ninth for assists per 90 minutes and sixth for goals plus assists per 90 minutes. There are two caveats to bear in mind. First, United have scored five goals in four games so it is perhaps surprising that they have an attacking player turning in league-leading numbers. Second, Garnacho’s sample size is a small one – 140 league minutes – and maybe that’s the real point. It’s little wonder there are calls for more playing time.
United’s underlying defensive numbers are a double-edged sword. They’re doing too much defending and giving away too high a quality of chance. Goalkeeper Andre Onana is near the bottom of the list for save percentage but the expected goals (xG) of the shots he faces that hit the target is at the very top.
There’s good news too. Onana is among the best in terms of out-performing that metric, which is crisply titled PSxG/SOT. It goes without saying that there’s a defensive cloud around that silver lining but United have also won more tackles and made more interceptions per 90 minutes than anyone else in the league. They’re second for loose ball recoveries too.
Diogo Dalot and Lisandro Martínez have made nine interceptions apiece and the Argentine is another potential spark for improvement. He’s useful in possession and boasts the seventh best pass completion rate in the Premier League.
After an injury-ravaged 2023/24 season, Martínez has started all four of United’s Premier League matches in 2024/25 so far. He’s getting up to speed nicely and the Red Devils look all the better for it.
It’s a similar story at the other end, where United’s total npxG is on par with Liverpool and behind only Manchester City, who’ve scored seven and eleven times respectively. They’re rock bottom of the division when it comes to their performance versus their npxG, which is potentially indicative of a finishing issue albeit over a very small sample size.
Therein lies another positive. Garnacho will get more time on the pitch. Marcus Rashford is off the mark. Joshua Zirkzee has some good indicators in his underlying numbers too, though nothing that outweighs his most costly contribution to date. Bruno Fernandes, Rasmus Højlund and Amad Diallo are just a few of the other capable finishers who should help the discrepancy level out over the coming months.
The chances will be there to enable that. Only City have created more shots from completed passes in open play but Ten Hag might consider a more varied methodology of attack.
United are second to Aston Villa for attempted through balls and they rank well for progressive passing distance and pass completion rate, but they’re the only team in the Premier League with no shots created from dribbles.
Exploring the four matches played so far, I was struck that there’s nothing that struck me. United beat Fulham without being dominant in possession terms but having enjoyed a good amount of that possession in the Fulham half.
They shaded open play xG in defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion but the Seagulls won out thanks to a little good fortune and superior performance on all shot data, both ground and aerial duels won, and most passing metrics.
The nadir thus far was losing to Liverpool at home, a game which made no little impact on United’s league-leading number of errors leading to goals. Liverpool had more shots and more big chances than United, as well as more shots inside the box and more possession in the United half.
That was one-sided, but not quite a walloping. On the other side of the international break, United gave a poor Southampton side a battering that was exacerbated by the sending off of Jack Stephens for the Saints.
United racked up ten shots on target, 611 passes with a nine-in-ten completion rate, and 38 touches in the Southampton box. It was only going to end one way.
The numbers are only part of the data. Intangibles and qualitative information are components too, and so many of them seem to work against any idea of optimism at Old Trafford. Unlike the quantitative stuff, the softer data can be influenced by mood. United’s mood is influenced in turn by decades of triumph.
But there’s no doubt that United have a core of players who pass the eye test. Supporters aren’t calling for Garnacho because of indicative positives in his performance numbers, but because he’s quite clearly a dynamic player who makes things happen. Likewise, Mainoo and Martinez are evidently top-level players whether you scour the data or watch them playing.
There are some big names absent from that statement. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Whatever else we can take from United’s performances in the very early knockings of 2024/25, improving results and extracting more from the potential of an expensively assembled squad – both this season and in the longer-term – is going to take some work.
With Ineos looking over his shoulder and Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox tasked with dragging United from the edge of the Champions League places to meaningful title challenges against their noisy neighbours, Ten Hag has precious little room for error.
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Salty beef extracts
The slow death of the screamer (BBC Sport)
The fall and rise again of Chesterfield: ‘Non-league was a reality check’ (i)
Morecambe remain rooted to the bottom and up in the air (Unexpected Delirium)
Jason Dozzell: ‘At 16 I’d walked into a drinking culture, a gambling culture’ (The Guardian)
The new Champions League format (Goodnight Vienna)
From Pitchside to Youthside: Joe Vines Takes on Bromley’s Future Stars (Veo)
Why the Transfer Market WILL change - whether anyone likes it or not (Game Within The Game)
“I try to never set limits on what I can achieve. I know playing in this team I am going to get chances and if I get chances I feel like I can score many goals. I am going to keep going as long as I can and who knows what we can reach. Some of the top players in the world have scored more than I have so there are targets there to try and achieve.”
Harry Kane has 100 England caps and he isn’t done yet.
Dessert
I have no idea why I like the Umbro Velocita Matrix but I really do.
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Have a week.
If you'd have told me 20 years ago that Brentford would not only be playing Manchester United but making them look average, I would've demanded you give me some of whatever you were on. And yet here we are.
I love a data deep dive (really enjoyed reading this one) but I can't not stress that Man U are making the same old classic mistakes of shaking everything up... except the ethos being delivered from on high. Clubs in flux always forget the basics. I think INEOS are in for at least another six or seven years of manager churn, strategy rethink and falling expectations, despite the quality of personnel at their disposal. I totally agree that there's hope for their fans, but in football it's always the hope that kills you.