The 2023-24 Season Preview Post

The annual Manchester United are going to be all right post. Right?

Aug 09, 2023

(Author’s note: Substack says this post is too long for an email. So if you want to make sure you’re reading the whole thing - specifically the part about Manchester United - make sure to either click the headline and open it up as a page in your browser, or view it on the Substack app.)

The time has come for the annual Manchester United will be all right season preview post. I first wrote this back in the days of my old blog1 and the gist has always been, “yea, Manchester United are better than the fans believe but more importantly, their rivals aren’t NEARLY as good as United fans think they are.” I’ve written this post three times (2019, 2020, 2022) and each year United have finished in the top four so just by writing it again this year we’re already off to a good start.

Having said that, this season feels a bit different for two reasons.

The first and most important one being, United fans don’t seem worried in the slightest. The doom and gloom that usually encompasses social media this time of year isn’t there this year. Coming off a good year and a (seemingly) good transfer window everyone is expecting another step forward. Some may even think they can compete for the title? Should fans be more concerned? The last time they were this excited was heading into the 2021-22 season and that turned into a disaster.

Secondly, there’s some interesting statistics at play this year. Last season the top four was comprised of three teams that finished outside the top four the previous year. We’ve never had that many “newcomers” in one season before.

More interestingly though is when we look at the following stat - opposition deep passes completed. From 2017-2022 only three teams who allowed more than five deep completions per match finished in the top four - and none of them finished in the top four the following year. But last year, all three newbies allowed more than five deep completions per match.

Usually this stat would be an easy way to identify a team about to drop off but not this year. Do I expect all three teams to drop back out of the top four again this year? No. Something’s gotta give.

So let’s get to the season preview, as always, starting with every United are up against.

Manchester City

You’re not competing with Manchester City.

I don’t care who left City this summer. They’re going to do what they always do. As Pep reshapes his team in the early part of the season they’ll drop points against bad teams. It’ll be enough for all of us to wonder ‘is this the year they’re merely good rather than dominant?’ Then they’ll quietly win like 17 of their last 19 matches en route to another title.

Liverpool

Darwin Nunez was not signed for *last* season. He was the first piece of a reshuffle from Liverpool that was going to see them change the way they look and play. Naturally an acclimation period was to be expected as Nunez settled into a new league and Liverpool adjusted to a new style. They’ve added more pieces this year to further round out their attack - which will rely less on Mo Salah. I’m expecting a more settled in Darwin Nunez to come out firing and have a big season.

The question mark over Liverpool is in midfield. Jordan Henderson and Fabinho both needed to be phased out, but losing them both in one swoop probably wasn’t the plan. It puts a lot of pressure on youngsters Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott but that’s how you have to break in youngsters. You never learn anything about them until you actually throw them out there without a leash.

Liverpool are coming off one of those strange quirky seasons. They won just two of their first eight matches, but statistically their numbers were still there. Even during the winter when they were sitting mid-table, all the metrics that are usually reliable for predicting a top four team had them as a top four team.

Chalk up the inconsistent results to just getting used to a new playing style with some different faces. Every time it looked like they’d turned a corner, they slipped up again. With nine games left in the season their Champions League hopes relied on them winning all nine of their remaining games while Manchester United or Newcastle could only win about four of their remaining fixtures. In other words, their hopes were dead and buried.

And yet they nearly made it happen. Liverpool rallied off seven wins in a row before finally dropping points against Aston Villa and having the Champions League door slammed in their faces. But the Liverpool we saw over the final nine games of the season is far more indicative of what they’re likely to be this season than the one we saw over the full campaign.

I’d write Liverpool’s name in for a top four finish this season, and I’d write it in ink.

Arsenal

I don’t really know what to make of Arsenal’s summer so far. Spending £170 million on Kai Havertz and Declan Rice is… certainly a choice! Having said that, Mikel Arteta is a much better manager than I - and many others - originally gave him credit for. He always has a plan for each of his players and what he wants to do, so if these are the guys he wants I’ll believe he has a reason why.

As my friend Aaron Moniz said, Arsenal fans definitely have reasons to be concerned that they spent a ton of money but didn’t really get any better.

However I’m not really sure it matters. Arsenal are a really good team. They won 84 points last year. It’s really hard to improve on 84 points no matter how much money you spend.

The biggest key for Arsenal improving is just going to be incremental gains from their existing players. One of their three 15 goal scorers scoring 18 goals. Gabriel Jesus upping his tally to 15 goals. Conceding 3-5 fewer goals over the course of the season.

Incremental gains from 84 points goes a long way. If Arsenal were to change just two of their six draws last year into wins, they’d be looking at 88 points. That would enough points to win 13 of the 22 38 game Premier League seasons before Manchester City raised the target to about 95 points in 2018.

But that’s the thing, you’re competing against Manchester City who are a cheat code. How much could you really do?

Nevertheless, I’m still not entirely sure of what to make of the Gunners, but here’s what I’ll say. They’re not going to finish 2nd in a “best of the rest” situation2. They’re either going to take that step forward and take the title race with City right down to the wire, or they’re going to take a step back and find themselves in the battle for the final Champions League slot.

On match-day 37 Arsenal will be playing for something. Just a matter of what.

Brighton

Roberto De Zerbi has become everyone’s coaching darling but don’t fall into the trap of confusing “fun” and “well-coached” with “good.” As I mentioned plenty of times last season on the podcast, Brighton may be fun, but they don’t win (consistently).

Under De Zerbi they never had a three game winning streak and only won back to back games three times. They’re a great example of how much an impact coaching actually has. No matter how well you’re coached you can only be so good if you don’t have good talent.

Brighton have had a few of their better players leave and the most crucial of them all, Moises Caicedo, wants out. I’m not too worried about that because no one is better at recruiting high end talent right now than Brighton, but also no one hits on young players as consistently as Brighton has forever. Eventually that well will run dry. They also have to deal with playing European football this season - something they’ve never had to do before.

Brighton aren’t taking a further step forward up the table this season. There’s too much going against them. But despite the exodus I don’t see them tumbling too far down the table either. Considering in three of the past four seasons the difference between 8th and 11th in the table was 4-6 points, I can see them finishing anywhere in that range.

Tottenham

Everyone seems to love Ange Postecoglou so at least Tottenham have that going for them. They also don’t have European football so I guess that helps.

Otherwise, I’m not really seeing anything to worry me about this Spurs team.

Harry Kane scored 30 goals last year and they finished eighth. They’re just a painfully average team, and they haven’t really done anything to change that with the season just a few days away3.

As of this writing, Harry Kane is still a member of the squad. They’ve completely botched that whole situation. Even if Kane stays that’s far from a guarantee of anything because read the paragraph above again.

If Kane leaves, they’ve got some high potential young guys that fans can get excited about, but I’m still not seeing where the goals are going to come from. This team just looks like the Tottenham and Everton teams of the late oughts, the ones that got the ‘best of the rest’ of the Premier League players but were distinctly behind the Champions League clubs.

They’ll probably get back into Europe, but the Champions League? I don’t see it.

Newcastle

Eddie Howe did a great job with the talent he had at his disposal last year. This year he obviously wants more talent. The concern for Newcastle here is that Eddie Howe, like most coaches, is much better at coaching the players he inherits4 than being a director of football and finding good players to sign5. Considering how well Newcastle appeared to be run under the new regime, it’s a bit surprising they’re going down this route.

Here’s the question about Newcastle this season. Can they replicate what they did last year? I don’t think they’re getting 18 goals out of Callum Wilson again, but I do think they get much more from Alexander Isak.

It’s easy to see a drop off coming for Newcastle but it’s also easy to see the path for taking a step forward. Newcastle drew 15 matches last year. Seven of those 15 draws ended 0-0. Add just a tiny bit of goalscoring and you can convert those seven 0-0 draws into some wins. Cut the total number of draws in half down to seven and turn those other eight matches into say five wins and three losses6, and right there you’re looking at at least seven more points.

For the Magpies it all comes down to whether they’re going to runback their Atletico Madrid level mastery of the dark arts to keep the ball out of their net - or are they going to try and play more football?

Chelsea

I’ll give Chelsea credit for doing a better than expected job at cleaning up the mess they made last season. They were thrown a massive lifeline by Saudi Arabia trying to get into football at this exact time, but then again United got a similar lifeline last season.

For all of Chelsea’s cleaning though, they’re still left with a big mess. The squad is still horrifically unbalanced and while you can write off everything about last year, there’s still far too many question marks surrounding many of their unproven players. Christopher Nkunku seems like a good addition, but as a non-Chelsea fan I’m thrilled with the Dušan Vlahović rumors. He appears to be a good bet to keep Chelsea’s no. 9 curse going.

The big difference maker for Chelsea is supposed to be new manager Maurico Pochettino but I really don’t see it.

Pochettino is fine. He's just not a miracle worker and it doesn’t seem like the club are putting him in the best position to succeed. Mason Mount was probably the most “Pochettino player” they had in the squad and he’s left for Manchester United. Conor Gallagher is probably the next most “Pochettino player” but Chelsea don’t seem interested in offering him a new deal and there’s every chance he could be playing his football elsewhere this season.

This isn’t the Roman Abromovich era where Chelsea could always quickly bounce back anymore. It’s very hard to see Chelsea being a player for anything other than a Europa League spot this year.

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Aston Villa

I guess if I threw Brighton in here I have to throw in Aston Villa. Unai Emery may be able to do something in the Europa but as for this team making a step up to the Champions League. Just no.

Manchester United

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you Manchester United will be all right, but honestly I don’t think you need that. Everyone seems very excited this year. The team made moves in the transfer window before August! Not only do those moves look good7 they also filled holes in the squad!

Instead, I’ll give you the general more down to earth outlook.

Manchester United are a good team. There is also plenty of things to be concerned about.

We can start by scrolling back up to the graphic about opponents deep completions. Sure, Arsenal and Newcastle had higher numbers then you’d like to see but United’s were the worst of the lot. Andre Onana may help in that regard, but this wasn’t a David de Gea issue considering their numbers from 2019-21 were much lower and De Gea started 64 of the 76 Premier League matches in that span.

Looking elsewhere, we can look at the net difference between how many times a team gets the ball into their opponents box and how many times opponents successfully get the ball into your own box.

Over the last six years just five teams that finished in the top four had a lower box entry differential than +5. Three of those teams failed failed to finish in the top four the following season. None were as low as United’s +2.87 last year.

Then there’s the tried and true expected goal differential - almost the best predictor of top four teams. Since the 2017-18 season only 2017-18 Manchester United and 2018-19 Tottenham managed a top four finish without being in the top four in xG differential. Neither of them returned to the Champions League the following year.

United were sixth in xG differential last season. They finished with 75 points but understat’s expected points model had them at 66.4. In all likelihood, United are going to need to improve just to tread water in the table.

While they work on reversing some results like say, the 1-0 loss to West Ham or either of the losses to Brighton, they’ll need to improve their underlying numbers to ensure some of their other results don’t get reversed the other way.

You also have to account for the fact that some things aren’t easy to build upon. We all hope - and I’d even say it’s likely - that United will take more than two points in their away games against their top six rivals, but it’s just as likely they’re not going to win all five home games against them again.

This is how I wrapped up my “Manchester United are going to be all right” preview last year.

United can finish in the top four this season but in order to do so they’ll need a lot of things to break perfectly for them, as well as a lot of things to go wrong for their rivals.

On the one hand, yes United’s rivals dropped off and opened the door for them. On the other hand, 75 points is 75 points. You get that many points you’re going to find yourself in the Champions League. But that doesn’t change the fact that so many things did in fact break perfectly for them last season.

Last year United played 23 matches that were decided by one goal or less. 17 one goal games, and six draws. They won a whopping 13 of the 17 one goal games, an extremely high rate. Their goal difference in those one goal matches was +9 against an expected goal difference of just 5.68. Nothing about this is very repeatable.

It’s well documented that United’s finishing last year was terrible. They scored about 11 non-penalty goals below what they were expected - though if you look at where those misses came it only ended up costing them about a point in the table. Obviously the logic is by boosting the attack you’ll play fewer one goal matches by turning some of those 1-0 wins into 2-0 or 3-0 wins, but the bigger number here is about how many goals United conceded. Or rather didn’t concede.

David de Gea may have won the golden gloves but he finished the season with a PSxG-G of -1.5 - meaning he actually conceded 1.5 more goals than he would have been expected to given the shots he faced. And yet, United conceded just 41 non-penalty goals against a NPxGA of 48. That’s seven goals fewer than expected. De Gea’s number tells you he wasn’t saving those shots, their opponents just had horrific finishing.

United did have a few of calamitous performances that skew these numbers, but probably not in the way you’re expecting.

In the three losses to Brentford (away), Manchester City (away), and Liverpool (away) United conceded 17 goals on just 7.6 expected goals. That means over the other 35 matches they conceded just 24 goals vs an expected goals of 40.42! The overachievement is even greater. When we strip out those three matches De Gea’s PSxG-G jumps to a very respectable +6.28 so he was doing his part in keeping the ball out but there’s still just a whole lot of their opponents missing the net there. Suddenly it’s not such an easy area for Andre Onana to improve on.

Obviously the plan is having Onana in goal allows you to push your defense up and play higher up the pitch. That right there should prevent more shots, which will lower the xGA, and deep completions from happening while raising your net box entry differential. As the preseason has shown us, there’s going to be mistakes made when playing out the from the back - especially early in the season - which puts some more pressure on the attackers to hit the ground running, but overall this is a net gain and the defense should be much better.

As a whole, Manchester United are a better team this year than they were last year. Pending the arrival of Sofyan Amrabat the midfield depth has either gotten better or much better9. You can’t never write off a player after just one season so there’s plenty of reason to believe you’ll get more out of Antony. It’s logical to expect a step up from Alejandro Garnacho and the club is almost definitely better at striker.

That doesn’t mean they don’t still have a lot of the same concerns around them. For as much as they’ve added in midfield, they still look overly reliant on Casemiro. If he’s not there, it’s a problem. United don’t have anyone that can do what Casemiro does, and they ask him to do a ton! Last season Casemiro played just 88 fewer minutes of club football than his career high for a year - and he only played in 28 league games! If he weren’t suspended for seven games, he’d probably have played more. Yet despite the suspension he looked very leggy in the final months of the season.

Now at 31 years old, can Casemiro’s legs handle such a large and taxing workload over a full season? They’re going to need Antony to provide more in the attack. They’re going to need Rashford to at the very least maintain what was a career high goal scoring output, and they’re definitely going to need to him to develop some consistency in scoring away from Old Trafford.

While fans will love the way Rasmus Hojlund plays we don’t completely know what wer’re getting with him this season. He could hit the ground running and score 15-20 goals in the league this year. He could very easily be someone who needs a year to acclimate to things and settle in and doesn’t produce much this season before becoming a 20 goal striker next year. He could end up being a bust10.

The range for this United team is quite large. They can improve their underlying numbers and finish on the same points total. They can overachieve on improved underlying numbers and finish with over 80 points. They could also improve their underlyings but due to variance doing it’s thing end up finishing with fewer points. I wouldn’t be shocked by any of those outcomes.

At the end of the day, are United one of the four best teams in the league? Probably. (But they’re probably closer to number five than they are to number three). They won’t need as much to go their way this year as last year, but they’ll still need a lot to go their way.

As long as United show even marginal improvement on those underlying numbers, they’ll be good enough to get it done. The fact that there’s so many strong (but flawed) teams means once again everyone will be dropping points left and right.

They probably won’t go as deep in the cups this year - unless they can continue to only play home games against lower level opposition - so that too will help them out.

And if all else fails, the 2024-25 Champions League will be the first under the new 36 team format. If English clubs perform anywhere close to as good as they’ve been doing in Europe recently, the Premier League will have five representatives in the tournament - and I just don’t see five teams finishing ahead of United this year.

Kwest Thoughts