The 2024-25 Season Preview Post
How are Manchester United compared to their rivals this season? What should we expect?
Would you look at that. The Premier League season is back this week and it’s already season preview time.
It’s been a bit of a weird summer for Manchester United fans. Erik Ten Hag has retained his job after a very weird coaching search. The caveat is there’s been almost a complete changeover with the assistant coaches - with United convincing a number of former head coaches to take on roles as assistant coaches.
There is optimism with INEOS settling into their minority takeover and a new football structure being put in place. However just days before the season begins not much has happened. United initially signed a young striker and even younger centerback - good pieces to build for the future but maybe not this year? Those players also merely replaced outgoing players such Anthony Martial and Raphael Varane, both of whom’s contracts expired this summer. A few days before the season they added Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui from Bayern Munich, which adds some depth and will help if you feel United’s problem last season was “Jonny Evans played too much,” but otherwise they don’t particularly make United much better? That they are both former Ajax players does not help Ten Hag beat the allegations.
They haven’t actually moved on any of their other older players though that was always going to be the case.
That’s lead to a bit of a weird feeling heading into the new season with some more optimistic than others. Here’s the good news, since the summer of 2019 there have only been two seasons where United fans were almost unanimously optimistic about the upcoming season: 2021-22 and 2023-24. Those seasons ended with sixth and eighth place finishes so I guess in that regard it’s good that we’re on the fence again?
Without further ado we ask the question we ask every year over here. Are Manchester United going to be all right this season?
There’s a lot to be worried about this season, but as always it’s not just about United. Their rivals have a lot to be worried about as well. Let’s go through them.
Manchester City
City have achieved 1990's Atlanta Braves status. You pick them to win until they finally don’t win one.
Don’t get caught up by them dropping points early in the season. The only question with City is how many of their final 20 games are they going to win en route to another title?
Arsenal
Last season I said the key for Arsenal was making incremental gains on the 84 points they won in 2022-23. In 2022-23 the Gunners had an xG of 71.7 with an xGA of 42.0. They turned that in to 88 goals and conceded 431. They needed to score a few more goals, change just a few draws into wins, and then they’d be where they need to be. It would all just depend on, you know, will Manchester City be catchable?
By all accounts Arsenal did that. Last season they upped their xG to 76.1 and dropped their xGA to league best 27.9. That translated to 91 goals and an incredible-for-modern-times 29 goals conceded.
Those incremental gains turned one draw and one loss each into wins, giving Arsenal an additional six points for a total of 89. That’s the same number City won the league with in 2022-23. In fact, that number would have been good enough to win 14 of the 29 38 match Premier League seasons - and it would have them level with four other champions, where their +62 goal difference would have seen them win three of those seasons. In other words, Arsenal were good enough to win 17 of those 29 Premier League campaigns.
Except the Pep Guardiola era is different. 89 points has only been good enough to win two of the last seven Premier League seasons. Thus Arsenal find themselves in this situation where they still have to get better to win the league. They still need to score even more goals.
The problem is there’s only so much room to get better. Arsenal lowered their xGA by 14.1 last year but their xG only went up by 4.4. Almost everything in football has some give and take. An increase somewhere is going to have a decrease somewhere else. Arsenal need to figure out how to increase that xG without seeing too much of a decrease in that xGA. That and hope City come back down to earth.
The biggest question hanging over Arsenal at the start of last season was whether 2022-23 was just a really good season or if they had legitimately made the step up to title challengers. They answered that question. United aren’t competing with Arsenal this season.
Liverpool
There are a lot of questions about Liverpool this season. It’s their first season post Jurgen Klopp and how is that going to go?
Liverpool decided to bring the Premier League a second bald Dutch manager in Arne Slot, making the first question, how good is he? Dutch managers do not have a great track record in the Premier League regardless of hairstyle, with the one with the most longevity being… Ronald Koeman?
Liverpool have not been that active in the transfer market this summer which isn’t the end of the world since they’ve been rebuilding their team for the past couple of years but they’re by no means done with that.
They’ve still got major question marks hanging over a bunch of their players. Is this finally going to be the year Darwin Nunez kicks on? Is he going to face any suspension for entering the stands and fighting with fans at the Copa America? How much longer can Mohammed Salah keep carrying the team? The Egyptian is about to enter his 10th season since he first put 2000+ league minutes on his legs. He’s not yet at the point where production falls off a cliff, but this is typically when it starts falling.
Waturo Endo proved to be a good addition to that midfield last year, but how much depth is there and how much can you rely on a 31 year old to anchor your midfield?
Liverpool’s underlying numbers from last year don’t suggest they’re going to drop down the table, but they also don’t take into account a change of manager. They’re talented and well run enough that they can roll through to top four finish, but they’re a prime candidate to have some growing pains and fall out of the top four this season.
Aston Villa
Villa have had a fantastic summer so far. They managed to get out of their Moussa Diaby mistake and got £50.5m in doing so. They also sold Douglas Luiz when his value was at it’s absolute highest. Sure he had a good season but I also think he was pretty overrated. This is totally replaceable.
Villa have already moved to replace that. They’ve signed Amadou Onana from Everton who everyone was swooning over last season. They’ve also added left back Ian Maatsen, who at 22 was one of the best left backs in Europe last season and played a big part in Borussia Dortmund’s run to the Champions League final.
There’s a lot to like about what Villa have done this summer. If anything they may be making too many changes to the team. That’s always risky as you could have some early growing pains as players settle in but more importantly you’ve got a much higher risk of new signings not being good enough to begin with2.
I’m not too worried about them jumping pulling a Newcastle when they jump into the Champions League because they already dealt with a European fixture list last summer. Maybe if they’re getting killed in the Champions League it affects their confidence at the weekend? But at least I’m not worried about them handling the workload.
The biggest area of concern is the underlying numbers. Just like Manchester United in 2022-23, Villa were not strong in any of the three categories looked at last year3 that are pretty predictive of top four performance. Most importantly they were seventh in expected goal difference.
There might be a caveat here. When Villa lose they lose. Two of their most brutal losses in terms of underlying numbers came in the final three games of the season when they knew they had qualified for the top four (aka the players were more focused on partying). How much does that account for the numbers across the entire season though?
At the start of the summer I thought Villa were almost a lock to finish in the top four again, but teams just don’t put up numbers like that and repeat that feat the following season.
Tottenham
At the end of the season I wrote about what a weird season Spurs had last year. They won eight of their first 10 matches then lost four of their next five. In December they began a run where they went 10-3-3 over their next 16 matches before losing five of their last seven, but even during that big runs their fans were convinced they were terrible.
I think they caught a lot of teams by surprise at the start of last season, which won’t happen again. That run helped them temporarily hide the biggest question that team had - where are their goals going to come from?
Spurs are betting they’re going to come from Dominic Solanke. Solanke has had a very interesting career with some big years but also some very not big years mixed in between4.
For the most part it does look like things have started to click for him recently which is good news for Spurs who are making a £65m bet that his form continues. Eventually they are very likely to regret giving a 26 year old a contract until 2030(!!) but we’re only here to talk about this season.
Assuming Solanke is good for another 15+ goals this season he fills a pretty big hole leaving squad depth as the biggest question mark around Spurs.
Chelsea
Without question the biggest wildcard of the upcoming campaign.
For most of last year Chelsea’s numbers were much better than their actual results as they finished fourth in expected goal difference. Over the final few months of the season they seemed to get their shit together, the results started catching up5 to the numbers, and they charged up the table to finish a respectable sixth.
Naturally Chelsea reacted to this by… parting ways with manager Mauricio Pochettino and replacing him with Enzo Maresca from the Championship.
Normally the biggest question would be is Enzo Maresca good but I’m not even sure that matters? Obviously if he’s not a good enough manager Chelsea are going to implode once again but even if he is good enough this campaign can go in several directions.
The first is Maresca is a good manager but not nearly good enough to overcome the environment around Chelsea. The club is a straight up circus making it hard for anyone to succeed there. The squad is very awkwardly built and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind singing anyone other than “he’s a young talent.”
Do those young players fit together? That doesn’t seem to be a question that’s asked when Chelsea are signing players. They’re selling Connor Gallagher to make ends meet and what the hell is up with signing Pedro Neto?
Then there’s the other direction things can go.
Chelsea build on their strong underlying numbers from last year. Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo settle in and form a solid midfield partnership. Cole Palmer continues to be Cole Palmer only one year old and even better. Up top Christopher Nkunku will offer them much more than he did last year, or perhaps Nicolas Jackson not only continues getting on the end of really good scoring chances but actually starts finishing those chances. If Jackson brings his finishing boots this season then look out.
Newcastle
It has not been a great summer for Newcastle. The Magpies had some expected regression last year mostly thanks to a lack of depth. Despite that they still managed to qualify for the Conference League until Manchester United’s FA Cup win knocked them out of that.
That’s put Newcastle up against it in terms of PSR rules, which has already seen them sell promising youngsters Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh to Premier League rivals.
Neither of these guys would be key players for Newcastle this season but they are both players who can come off the bench and impact games for you - with Minteh looking like a potential future star. In other words, they’re young cheap squad players which is exactly what Newcastle need more of, and now they have even less of it.
Newcastle are a bit of an enigma. I could see Eddie Howe not even making it until Christmas. I could also see the lack of European matches helping them out and them doing enough to get back into the top four.
Brighton
We’re only including them because we included them last year.
Their biggest loss this summer was manager Roberto de Zerbi but to be honest I don’t think De Zerbi was making them much better than what their talent level was. Brighton’s issue is simply their talent level. This team is still a far cry off the team that qualified for Europe two years ago.
They’re rebuilding, it’s going to take time. Young players have to settle and grow. 10th place is their ceiling this season.
Manchester United
The biggest question Manchester United need to answer is what exactly is their goal this season? Are they looking to give big minutes to their emerging young stars to maximize their development or is their priority getting back into the Champions League?
The elephant in the room here is the newly installed football structure may have a different answer to that question than the teams first team manager?
Everything that INEOS has done so far gives more of an impression that they’re looking at this season as “Year Zero” rather than “Year One.” Erik Ten Hag on the other hand is entering year three and not only have all his assistant coaches been replaced, everyone who was involved in hiring him is also gone from the club. It’s highly likely that he’s going to be feeling pressure to get results.
Not too unexpectedly United have been pretty quiet this summer. Just a few days before the Community Shield they’d made just two signing who are direct replacements for players that left. 18 year old Leny Yoro seems more like a player for tomorrow and the fee United paid for Joshua Zirkzee suggests squad player. That brings us to United’s young core of Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho, and Rasmus Hojlund. All three players had fantastic seasons last year for their respective ages, but in terms of being the top guys on a Champions League level team they were nowhere near that level.
All three are still developing and in three years time they could be among the best players at their respective positions. But for this season United can’t call upon the 2027-28 version of these players, they can only utilize the 2024-25 versions. If United want these guys to be their key players and make the Champions League they’re going to need a bit more from Kobbie Mainoo. If they want to run their attack through Garnacho again this season, they’ll probably need him to make ‘the leap’ if they want to finish in the top four.
They’re also going to need a lot more from Marcus Rashford. You need your highest paid players to play like your highest paid players. However there are legitimate compatibility questions here. Can you get the best version of Rashford along with the best versions of Garnacho and/or Hojlund, or is it only possible to get the best version of one or two of them? This goes back to the original question - what is the priority of the club?
Individual improvement is needed in several areas but that’s only going to get you so far. Last season we highlighted how United’s underlying numbers in 2022-23 were quite weak. They needed everything to go their way that season and it did.Last season those underlying needed to be improved, only for them to get worse. Way worse.
Those numbers obviously need to improve this year. Not just to 2022-23 levels but in all likelihood better than that. The only that’s going to happen is with a better structure. You can’t be conceding 17 shots a game and expect to make the Champions League.
It’s almost impossible for that not to happen this year for the simple reason that if United are anywhere near as poor as they were last year, it’s hard to see Ten Hag surviving that and the list of managers who - at the bare minimum - can put in a better defensive structure is not a short one.
Final Predictions
Manchester City and Arsenal look to be in a league of their own. After that there are six teams that could realistically finish anywhere between third and… tenth?
A month ago I was very bullish on Chelsea. Then they started playing games and while preseason doesn’t matter, when there’s major warning flags in the preseason those don’t typically go away when the real games start.
I do think there’s a lot to like about Villa but then I saw those underlying numbers and they’re hard to ignore. When you follow the numbers you’re going to be right more often than not.
However, the numbers say the most likely outcome for United this season is their underlyings improve but their results actually get worse. And yet here I am not really sure that’s going to be the case.
Last season United were able to overcome a horrible structure and finish eighth simply because for the most part they had more talent than their opponents. That was essentially the floor for this talent level. Even with so many players having bad seasons and an expected goal difference of -0.33 per game, the talent on the team wasn’t finishing below eighth.
Therefore if there’s any improvement on the underlying numbers and any of their big guns re-find their form,6 it’s hard to see them doing any worse than 60-64 points. I also feel like there’s a bit of a 2019-20 vibe about this season, with two dominant teams and then so many others with such big question marks. Therefore while last year we said 71 points was the magic number for a top four spot, it could be lower this year.
Not to mention the fact that England doesn’t have five Champions League teams this year is a complete aberration. Even if Aston Villa have a Newcastle like campaign in the Champions League, none of the Champions League clubs are going to pull a Manchester United. The extra games in the revamped “league phase” will give English clubs a bigger chance to pad that co-efficient7. It’s likely the top five this year will be in the Champions League next year.
With so many questions over so many clubs, that doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for United. I see the pathway but they’ll need everything to go right. I’m not sure if enough goes right, but if it’s United and Newcastle right there at the end, history says that only ends one way.
Manchester City
Arsenal
Liverpool
Tottenham
Manchester United
Newcastle
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Numbers per Fbref. Includes penalties
With signings having a better than 50/50 shot of not working out, signing more players is always a big risk
Deep completions allowed, box entry differential, and expected goal difference
He’s had some injuries but his injury history isn’t nearly as big as I thought it was
But also Cole Palmer just went supernova beginning in March.
Plus if you have Mason Mount and Jadon Sancho around this season - two players that actually complement some of the attackers - that can jump start your attack. If the manager plays either of them
And Germany is not going to get another magical Borussia Dortmund run to the final