Return To Glory : Manchester United

It’s hard to say anything about this season, the results speak for themselves despite some periods of poor play. United would finish with five trophies while putting together the most dominant season in Premier League history. A points total of (101) with (33) wins would be new league records, their (2) draws would be a United record low. All of their success would boost them to 2nd in the European Club Rankings, just behind City. After this season it’s hard to know what they need to do to pass their noisy neighbors, perhaps another season or two of this will do it.

Individually there wasn’t too much to be excited about outside of some accolades for Marcus Rashford. Rashford would finish 2nd to Erling Haaland as the Best Player In Europe, with Bruno Fernandes coming in 3rd. Rashford set a new record for Champions League goals with (21), crushing Ronaldo’s record of (17), on his way to Champions League Player of the Year, Golden Boot, and Top Forward. Fernandes (Champions League Player of the Year), Jude Bellingham (Premier League & UEFA Young Player of the Year), Pedro Porro (Champions League Top Defender), and Antony (Champions League Top Midfielder) would all garner awards for their run of form in Europe. Erik ten Hag would also take home an award, beating out a number of solid options for Premier League Coach of the Year.


When you step back and look at United’s production as a whole, it’s easy to see why they put together such a dominant season. Once again it wasn’t a single player driving the attack, ten Hag has managed to make the wings, attacking midfielder, and striker into a source of goal scoring and creativity. The production even extends to the second squad, with the same positions having excellent seasons and making United’s future bright. Rashford is the clear standout with (56) total goals but Bruno Fernandes, Jadon Sancho, and Antony all deserve plaudits for the level of production they achieved this year. These four managed to dominate the Premier League’s Top 3 attacking / form categories.


It’s hard to pick out a real weakness with United, who led the Premier League in goals scored (124) and allowed (29), though Pedro Porro is shining some light on the LB position due to his creative output. Porro’s (11) assists tops all non-attacking players aside from Christian Eriksen, matching Tyrell Malacia and Renan Lodi combined. Raphaël Varane’s (12) goals also highlights ten Hag’s problems with scoring off corners, with António Silva the only other defender showing up on corners / set pieces. Perhaps if Silva were to play as often as Varane he would pick up the slack, but with no other defender registering more than a single goal off a corner it presents a problem that United may need to address going forward. Ten Hag has clearly shifted toward taller players, Silva and Zeno Debast are a stark difference from Lisandro Martinez, but they will need to work on their set pieces to give those players an opening. United looks set to remain competitive for years to come, it’s going to be hard to top this year but maintaining an elite level of play should be in the cards.

It wasn’t completely a secret, with rumors continuing to swirl and keen eyed observers seeing the signs, but United finally broke their silence and announced a slate of changes that would rock their fan base. Ownership would need to walk the tightrope of meeting the modern demands of the game while trying to honor the history of England’s most successful club. Statements released by the club stressed the need to modernize and prepare for the future of the club, but it would be clear that increased revenue was also a primary driver of the changes announced.

It’s hard to nail down which announcement was the most important, but the flashiest move that rapidly divided the fan base was the plan for the most aggressive and comprehensive facility upgrades in club history with the aim of setting United at the peak of world football. United would present approved plans for new stadiums, combined training facilities, expanded public transportation, and a broad redevelopment of the Old Trafford area. Herzog & de Meuron, architects of Bayern Munich’s Allianz Area, would be retained to design all of their facilities including the proposed transportation upgrades, commercial, and residential developments.



Opting for a completely new stadium, slated to be named New Trafford, over renovating Old Trafford would prove to be an extremely unpopular decision among fans while simultaneously being extremely popular. Ultimately, the club felt they could not upgrade Old Trafford to a level that was required and decided to use the parking lot to construct a larger state of the art stadium. New Trafford will seat 95,000 spectators, making it the largest venue in England to eclipse Wembley, and will be joined by the UBS Arena to host the United women’s team along with the U21 & U18 sides. The 20,000 seat area would also be available for non-football events, helping to activate the area beyond game days. The development would move all parking to parking structures to create more open space, the largest of which would be named after Sir Alex Ferguson, as well as an expanded museum and New Trafford train station. Club ownership had also managed to purchase or work on partnerships with most of the land to the north for housing and office space, working closely with UBS Arena sponsor (and newly announced team sponsor) UBS Group AG.


The club would also share plans for a massive training complex, combining all of their facilities, on the site of their current Trafford Training Center near Carrington. The new Hewlett Packard Enterprise Training Complex will bring the senior, women’s, and youth training all under one roof and allow the team a drastically improved training environment.

As many would have noticed with the new facilities announcement, United have managed to land a number of new sponsors thanks to their success under Erik ten Hag. The biggest and most surprising announcement regarding sponsors was the return of Nike on a £1.75B kit deal lasting 10-years, a deal that would now be the biggest in football. Few thought Nike would have the appetite to spend so much on another club with PSG and Barcelona countering Adidas’ Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, but ownership clearly managed to sell them on the future of the club. Jim Ratcliffe’s connections through F1 also bore fruit for United’s commercial success with the announcement of Petronas as a new kit sponsor, another move that would fill United’s coffers. They would also announce UBS Group AG (also stadium sponsors) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (training ground sponsors), both companies that are Team Partners with AMG Petronas.



The last big announcement might have been as divisive as the stadium plan, but there is no denying that United are aggressively modernizing. In a move seen more and more across football, more recently in Italy, United have redesigned their logo and decided to go with a bolder simplified logo featuring just the iconic Red Devil. They are taking the gamble that Manchester United have become popular enough that the Red Devil is instantly recognizable, though they immediately faced criticism for papering over the history included in the previous logo.

The return of Nike came together with United’s radical change in graphic identity, but as an olive branch they made a subtle wink to the Newton Heath contingent. The general color scheme across the home and away kits will be very familiar to United fans, while simple the red-white-black and white-black scheme harken back to a number of traditional United kits with an attempt to take the edge off the new logo. Initial reactions were very extreme on both ends, with United already reporting record initial kits sales while social media was on fire with fans posting expletive laden rants about the new logo. The third kit is a reference to one of the last Newton Heath home kits before the team officially became Manchester United, possibly a cynical approach but there is some hope that ‘throwback’ kits will replace the green and yellow scarves associated with the Glazers Out / Pro-Fans movement that have been so prominent prior to Ratcliffe’s takeover.

Quite the disorienting window for anyone familiar with Manchester United and their relationship with the transfer window. With their recent success and influx of sponsorships most fans expected United to move into Galacticos mode, players like Kylian Mbappé were high on fans’ wish lists but they would end up being very disappointed. Erik ten Hag would oversee a massive clearout of the squad, moving along bench players and striking deals to turn substantial profits. For what feels like the first time in history United would turn a substantial profit of £87.6M thanks to £178M in sales. PSG’s swoop for Yaser Asprilla (£52M) would be too much to pass up for a player stuck behind Jadon Sancho and Antony, and their approach for Renan Lodi (£38.5M) would be a no-brainer after Atlético Madrid basically gave him away for £6.75M following his loan spell at Nottingham Forest.

The only drama of the window would be the self-inflicted wound suffered by Diogo Dalot who would complete his falling out with ten Hag. After pushing to be sold starting with the addition of Pedro Porro he would finally get his opening, the signing of Vincenzo Marino from Atalanta would mean that he would be allowed to leave. Inside sources report that Dalot continued to demand to be sold, but refused a number of contract offers from interested clubs while United refused to send him out on loan. The fall out and signing of Marino would have Dalot staring at being the third choice RB, something that seems to have finally pushed him to agree a contract with Juventus.

The final piece of news over the summer would be RB Leipzig approaching United for Vitor Roque. The news would leak very quickly, with the German side offering £85M for the 20-year old Brazilian, but sources report that United rejected the offer immediately.

Senior / Major Transfers (Out)
Yaser Asprilla (LW, PSG) - £52M
Renan Lodi (LB, PSG) - £38.5M
Diogo Dalot (RB, Juventus) - £34.5M
Alejandro Garnacho (LW, Rennes) - £30M
Anthony Elanga (RW, Wolves) - £14.5M
Finley McAllister (DM, West Ham) - £8.5M

Senior Transfers (In)
None

Final Transfer List (Impact Signings)
Armand de Kellermann (LW, Rennes - France) - £45M
Rudolf Le Roux (LB, Club Brugge - Belgium) - £26.5M
Vincenzo Marino (RB, Atalanta - Italy) - £14.5M
Răzvan Kovács (CB, FCV Farul Constanţa - Romania) - £4M
Elliot Howard (GK, Wigan - England) - £400K


For the first time in quite a while United have gone big on young players without much senior squad experience, and a number of these figure to be headed right for United’s senior squad. The surprise exit of Asprilla and Garnacho left an obvious opening at LW that United quickly filled with Rennes’ budding star de Kellermann. The 18-year old French winger had been working with their senior squad since he was 16, but hadn’t had any appearances, and played primarily for Rennes 2 in the National 2. Many picked 2025-26 to be his breakout year for the senior squad, but a £45M payday was too big to pass up for the Ligue 1 club. In a similar mold, yet significantly less heralded, Le Roux and Marino were likely set to make senior squad appearances for Club Brugge and Atalanta before United struck and offered them near-guaranteed playing time along with a massive pay increase. All three signings will have the full summer to acclimate and will likely be given ample opportunities to contribute on the senior level.

United would complete one of their oddest preseasons, one that saw them take a tour of Bulgaria, with a string of solid results that would have them heading into the season on the right foot. Erik ten Hag’s biggest dilemma over the summer would be folding in all the new additions to the second squad, his solution would be starting them in just about every game. Initially results would be secondary to getting them used to playing together, but things went so well that he didn’t change course.


The budding star of the summer would be Armand de Kellermann, early returns have him worth what they paid for him, a double against Bayern Munich would be his highlight of the summer. The end of the schedule, a 6-1 win over Crystal Palace in Wilfried Zaha’s Testimonial, would shine a light on United’s Brazilian attackers. Vitor Roque would star with a hat-trick while Angelo would record a double along with three assists. Zaha would score Palace’s only goal in the affair along with getting booked at 90’ to further sour his evening.

A stable first choice squad, with no new additions, would allow Erik ten Hag the room for a very aggressive move to a younger second squad. Four new starters, none of them over 18, would push the average squad age even lower. Bruno Fernandes and Raphaël Varane would be the only players over 30 with Rashford the next oldest at 27. Ten Hag and John Murtough seem to have succeeded at building a squad to last years rather than constantly hitting the transfer window to rebuild. Fernandes would remain Captain with Jude Bellingham as the Vice Captain, both players figure to hold those roles for a long time.

After a few strained years, Hag is more than set in goal with Diogo Costa back as first choice with Alban Lafont backing him up. Costa wasn’t cheap, but well worth the investment, as Lafont has turned into a ludicrously good purchase for just £2.2M. Lafont’s market value has skyrocketed at United, ten Hag’s biggest problem with him may be keeping him as a backup. These two are locked into their roles, though an injury to either would expose United’s organizational depth. 18-year old Ivo van Velde would earn a battlefield promotion if someone were to be injured for very long, but the chances of that are extremely low.

Defensively United are also set, with their only exposure at wingback in the second squad. Varane and Eric García remain the first choice center back pairing with Zeno Debast and António Silva backing them up. Tyrell Malacia and Pedro Porro return as the first choice LB and RB, their positions seem very solid at the moment, their backups will need to hit the ground running to keep ten Hag from looking like a fool to let Renan Lodi and Diogo Dalot go. Rudolf Le Roux steps into the second squad at LB and Vincenzo Marino at RB. Both players have scouts in love with them, most place their ceilings well above Malacia and Porro but it will take time for them to develop.

The defensive midfielder pairing established last year remains the same with Declan Rice manning the deep lying playmaker role and Bellingham back as the roaming playmaker. It’s a good thing Bellingham is so popular because the hype surrounding his backup would be nearly unbearable for a player of lesser quality. Willem Hoolickin has been given a permanent role in the senior squad and his kit has been flying off the shelves, hopefully the pressure doesn’t blunt what looks like a promising career. Andrey Santos remains Rice’s backup with £38M Italian teenager Simone Giovannelli earning himself a seat on the bench. Giovannelli might have Andrey Santos looking over his shoulder, but for the time being ten Hag has indicated he would be a valuable addition coming off the bench.



United’s attacking midfield options remain the same in the first team. United Legend and Captain Fernandes is unshakable despite the incredible development of Hannibal, ten Hag is spoiled at the central attacking midfield position. Antony and Jadon Sancho are locked in at RW and LW with such young players backing them up. Angelo has been more than worth the £20M paid for him, with some fans and pundits rating him above Antony. Armand de Kellermann is the lone newcomer at LW, he had a good summer but the pressure will be on him to keep up with Hannibal and Angelo in the second squad.

Striker is also unchanged, Marcus Rashford and Vitor Roque are going to be around as long as they want to. Vitor Roque has been so good that United could probably weather an extended absence by Rashford, but ten Hag isn’t spending too much time thinking about that scenario. The bigger question is if Rashford can reclaim his Ballon d’Or winning form and become United’s first two-time winner.

The footballing world belongs to England, everyone else is just happy to be here. The Premier League has managed to extend it’s lead atop the world of football as La Liga and the Bundesliga are pushed aside, the Champions League final is becoming more and more English with last year becoming so at the semifinal stage. Not much has changed with at least three English teams solid favorites to make the finals and one a favorite to repeat as champions.

On an individual level, the Premier League belongs to Erling Haaland. The Manchester City striker didn’t skip a beat when Pep Guardiola left for Chelsea, he’s continued his unparalleled scoring under Thomas Tuchel and is a solid 7-5 favorite to repeat as the top scorer and 13-2 favorite to be selected as the top player. Mohamed Salah, Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku, and Jadon Sancho fill out the remaining players selected to be in the running for top scorer. Kevin De Bruyne, Salah, Harry Kane, and Jude Bellingham are the most likely to compete for top player. Manchester United to have a firm grip on the top young player odds with Bellingham, António Silva, and Zeno Debast the three favorites to take home the award.

The projected Top 4 will not be a surprise, matching their 1-4 finish from last season. This time United come in as heavy 8-11 favorites with City behind them at 5-1. Tuchel’s side remains basically the same as Pep’s monster with Haaland continuing to fire them to victories. The fight for the top looks to be mostly a three team race, but based on last season City and Chelsea are going to be in a tight race for second. Guardiola’s Chelsea mostly stood pat in the transfer window thanks to the amount of depth on hand, but they did splurge on RW Marco Asencio, landing the Real Madrid veteran for £56M. Chelsea’s primary issue is their aging squad, with so many players over 30 they are looking at spending a lot more than £56M in the coming seasons if they want to stay on top. Liverpool will always be dangerous as long as Jürgen Klopp is around, but he continues to work with a core that probably peaked in their 2020 Premier League title winning side. Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Alisson continue to perform at a high level but the gap between them and the Top 3 is rapidly growing. They did add CF Dušan Vlahović in a £68M move on the final day of the transfer window, but now they just have two high priced strikers, Darwin Núñez might become a £79M paper weight. Liverpool finished (4) points behind City in 4th, just (2) points ahead of Arsenal and Spurs in 4th / 5th place.



Speaking of the remaining European competition slots, on paper it looks like a three team race with the chances that someone can move up into the Top 4. Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal remain favorites to snag the Europa League spot with the best odds of pipping Liverpool to 4th, he has a younger squad that added DM Hugo Guillamón from Valencia for £88M this summer and they have proven difficult for United to beat at times. Joachim Löw’s Tottenham finished level with Arsenal, canceling St. Totteringham’s Day, but Löw is going to have his hands full trying to stay there. The club haven’t added much via the transfer window, and they’ve held on to Harry Kane and Son Heung-min for so long it’s unlikely they will land a much needed £100M payday. Daniel Levy continues to hold on to his job, but Newcastle is going to continue doing their best to unseat him. The Saudi PIF cannot be faulted for their ambitions, while they didn’t spend quite so much on any individual they had the highest net spend this summer with £185M going out. On top of that they made one hell of a managerial appointment by bringing Zinedine Zidane to St. James’ Park. Their headline transfers of Wilfried Singo (£41M - Ajax), Luca Pellegrini (£36.5M - Benfica), and Ivan Toney (£36M - Brentford) are certainly a statement of intent. Zidane will need to find more than intent as the Magpies have struggled to break into the top tier of teams since the arrival of the Saudi PIF.

Leicester, despite finishing 14th last year, appear to be the cream of the crop that forms the mid-table mess. As the Premier League becomes stronger and stronger the distance between the top teams and the mid-table, even the 5th-7th teams, seems to grow exponentially. Leicester are the only team in this crowd that spent much in the summer, bringing in RW Sebastian Szymański from Feyenoord for £51M, but their problems extend far beyond adding a single player. Neil Lennon needs to get more out of players like Harvey Barnes, James Maddison, and Wilfried Ndidi or they could flirt with relegation again.



The race for the bottom is, of course, headlined by two teams promoted from the Championship. Sunderland and Bournemouth are betting favorites to be sent back down, but Norwich managed to dodge the odds makers ire and find themselves 5th likeliest to be relegated. Southampton, who finished 17th last year, are being picked to fall at least one more slot this year. José Bordalás, who’s been at Aston Villa for two years now, has to feel attacked by their 4th best odds to be relegated. They finished 13th last year so it’s unclear why they are being picked to go down, but they could very easily find themselves in danger.

The first two months of the season would have United square up against a lot of familiar faces with Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp making early season appearances. Things would start off on the wrong foot, but some early silverware would help drive the hype around defending multiple titles.

The first sour note would be a limp 0-0 loss to Chelsea on penalties in the Community Shield, a loss made more obnoxious by having Christian Eriksen on the other side. Eriksen would miss Chelsea’s first attempt, but Atony kicking the ball over the goal and Jude Bellingham having his attempt blocked would decide the affair 8-7 in the Blues’ favor. United would go right from Wembley to the VELTINS-Arena in Gelsenkirchen for the UEFA Supercup to face off against Joachim Löw’s Spurs. This time the Red Devils would come out ahead 3-1, with Vitor Roque scoring 30 seconds into the game. Dejan Kulusevski would equalize at 10’ off a corner before Vitor Roque would score a second on a penalty and Angelo would assist on an 86’ goal by Jadon Sancho. With their first trophy in hand, they would be off to Leicester to start their Premier League title defense.

The season opener would be exciting, but the media was very focused on United’s trip to Anfield to close out August. Erik ten Hag would need to stress that his team was focused on each game as it came, but it would be hard to deny that their first meeting with Liverpool could set the tone for the season. United would roll through their first three games, winning 1-0 at Leicester before beating up Bournemouth 4-0 at Old Trafford. A 2-1 win at home against West Ham would be notable for a late game outburst from ten Hag and Diogo Costa as the visitors, barely able to get out of their own third all game, would score at 81’ thanks to Lucas Paquetá. The full three points would paper over that poor sequence, but ten Hag was obviously disappointed.

The media was rewarded for their hype, with the Liverpool game turning into an early season 1-2 clash that would have title implications. Liverpool would be 1st on goal differential, and a win would put them firmly in front of a team that has dominated the league since ten Hag’s arrival. It turned out that ten Hag’s furrowed brow during the West Ham game would be justified, it would only take 2’ for United to make a mistake in the back and hand Liverpool the lead. Raphaël Varane would be lazy to a pass from Costa in their box and Thiago would get between him, getting the ball off him and giving him an easy shot. The furrowed brow would not leave ten Hag’s face anytime during the first half with United’s back line a complete mess, handing Luis Díaz Liverpool’s second as United just stood around watching. Things were so bad that Costa would head into the half with a 5.9 rating, something he would never recover from. Antony had a chance to get United on the board at 71’ with a nearly empty net, but instead he would hit the left post and leave the hosts up 2-0. Díaz would make it 3-0 at 81’ on a long shot Costa should have been all over, and just a few minutes later Marcus Rashford would emulate Antony by hitting the post with a wide open net. When the dust had settled Rashford and Antony would slump off the pitch with 5.8 ratings, as a whole United played like garbage and Liverpool punished them for it. The loss would drop United to 3rd and lift Liverpool into 1st by themselves.



Ten Hag would enter September with some real soul searching to do, and fast. Games against Real and Atlético Madrid in the Champions League could go south really fast if they held their form against Liverpool, and a trip to St. James’ Park would not be fun if their back line remained porous against better competition. United’s second squad would handle Brighton 2-1, but once again the back line would look lost as Leandro Trossard would walk through them for an easy goal. The trip to the Bernabeu would be tense with both teams vying for the top of the table, but whatever problems United were having with defending didn’t make the flight with them. A Rashford double would pace an easy 4-0 victory where Real Madrid failed to look interested. The most passionate display from Los Blancos came when Carlo Ancelotti fumed over a VAR decision on Rashford’s first goal, his eyebrow barely moved when Benjamin Pavard’s own goal made it 4-0 at 90’ and robbed Rashford of a hat-trick.

“It was a good win, we played very well, but we cannot be complacent,” warned ten Hag following the game. “We keep showing loss of focus, today we were very good, but other times this season we see it.”

The final four games of the month would seem to show ten Hag’s message got through, though another concern would start to bubble up that would have more of an effect on media coverage. United would top Newcastle 1-0, Wolves 2-0 in their Carabao Cup opening game, and then again 4-1 in the league, and close out the month with a 3-0 win over Atlético Madrid at home. The last game would push them to 1st in the Champions League table, but it would cost them Pedro Porro. Porro would suffer a knee injury during a rough outing that saw (10) players booked, he would be ruled out for (4) weeks and cede first team duties to Vincenzo Marino. Ten Hag’s minor concern would, once again, be Rashford’s early season form. Their former Ballon d’Or winner would have (5) goals in eight games while Vitor Roque would have (8) in six. The whispers for Vitor Roque to start over Rashford are quiet for the moment, but it’s getting harder to deny the young Brazilian is growing into a goalscoring machine.

October and November would leave Erik ten Hag dizzy, and that didn’t even take into account two international breaks that threatened to leave him short handed from injuries. Ten Hag just cannot seem to figure out United’s form, with results varying wildly and the first squad seems to be forgetting the script.

United’s opening game against Norwich, and embarrassing 7-0 beating at Old Trafford, would have led anyone to believe they were back to being a dominant force. The second squad seems to be running on all cylinders, especially against relegation fodder like Norwich, while the first squad struggles. Aside from seven goals, Vitor Roque (10.0), Hannibal (9.9), and Willem Hoolickin (9.3) putting on a show of quality, this game was marked by one of the most comical goals of the season just 1’ into the game. Norwich GK Etienne Green scooped up the ball under pressure from Vitor Roque, who would pester the keeper and prevent him from a quick distribution. Green would rip the ball away from Vitor Roque’s nudging, but end up dropping the ball behind him for Vitor Roque to poke into the net.

The international break would give ten Hag some extra time to plan for a trip to Spurs, but the extra two weeks still wouldn’t be enough for Pedro Porro to return from injury. Vincenzo Marino would take his place and U21 Richard France would be on the bench with ten Hag praying his services wouldn’t be needed. Coming after a 7-0 win, this game would look pathetic and alarming for United and the team seemed to forget out to defend. At 10’ Son Heung-min would hit Yves Bissouma running behind United’s back line and allow him to take a shot from a tight angle for a 1-0 lead. 36’ would see Son exploit the same weakness, this time hitting Enzo Boyomo who would be given a free run at goal for a 2-0 lead. Diogo Costa could have saved it, but instead ended up watching it go in. More salt on the wound would come at 57’ with Jadon Sancho limping off with a calf strain. Their second crap outing against a Top 5 team would look worse after the game as ten Hag would confirm Sancho’s injury would rule him out for up to three weeks.



An angry United, mostly spearheaded by the second squad, would come to life after the disappointing loss to Spurs. FC Nordsjælland would be on the wrong end of an 8-0 score in the Champions League, things were so bad for them that Armand de Kellermann and Vitor Roque would both walk away with 10.0 ratings. The first squad would redeem themselves with a 4-0 home win over Everton, and then the second squad would stomp Liverpool 4-0 at Anfield in the Carabao Cup. Hannibal would once again show his quality in that game, taking control of the attack and walking away with a 9.8 rating against a quality opponent.

November would start with a 3-0 win over Southampton with the return of Sancho and Porro to the lineup, there were high-fives all around with the sour taste of losing to Spurs vanishing. Ten Hag would continue to preach diligence, but something just wasn’t clicking and the team started to fall apart. The canary in the coal mine would be their first Champions League fixture of the month, a trip to Lyon would end up sending ten Hag into a fury. Antony would sit for Angelo at RW thanks to a minor training injury, and initially it wouldn’t change much for the squad. After 51’ United would enjoy a 3-0 lead thanks to goals from Sancho, Bruno Fernandes, and Raphaël Varane. Lyon would get on the board at 64’ thanks to a looping shot from Curtis Jones that would beat a leaping Costa, but with the game rolling into stoppage time it looked like a 3-1 win was in hand. At 90+1’ Lyon would be given a corner, and Castello Lukeba would head it in to make it 3-2 with United’s players looking frustrated while ten Hag signaled to stay calm. The small contingent of United fans could be heard whistling as the game crawled into 90+5’ and Lyon was awarded yet another corner. This time it was Corentin Tolisso’s work that would leave United’s heads hanging, heading it in for a 3-3 draw. Needless to say, ten Hag was furious.

“We will address this, there is a standard of play we maintain, this was not that standard” was ten Hag’s curt response to a reporter asking him what happened at the end. United remain 1st in the Champions League table, but this is a sign of a worrying trend.

The second squad would calm tensions with a 3-1 win over Sunderland before another international break, more time for ten Hag to consider his predicament with a game against City looming. United would come back from the break in good shape with City coming across town to Old Trafford, and fans would not be disappointed. The first 7’ might have been the wildest in the Manchester Derby history, thankfully the hosts would come out on top. 3’ in some suspect defending would allow City to slice right through United in just three passes, ending with João Cancelo feeding Jack Grealish for a goal that might as well have been an open net. Then at 5’ Antony would feed Marcus Rashford on the end line from wide, he would take a shot at an impossible angle but somehow the ball would squirt between GK Zach Steffen and the post to level the score 1-1. At 7’ Sancho would be tripped in the box by Nathan Aké, prompting a shower of whistling as the penalty was awarded. Fernandes’ attempt would be blocked sideways, but Fernandes would be able to rush onto it and poke it in from a tight angle before Steffen could recover for a 2-1 lead. After all of that excitement United would be able to take control of the game and add two more via a header from Varane and late Fernandes penalty for a much needed 4-1 win.

More high-fives all around would fade into hair pulling and teeth gnashing from United fans. A visit from PSG would just barely end in a 1-1 draw, saved only by an 85’ Fernandes goal that would see them snag points against the run of play. The final game of the month would see the second squad join in the mess with a visit to Aston Villa. A terrible goal at 2’, one where Douglas Luiz looked so far offsides that United’s players stopped playing to protest and allow him a free shot on goal. Ten Hag’s protests fell on deaf ears and VAR didn’t do anything to help, but they would only have themselves to blame as they just couldn’t do anything to dent the 1-0 score. They would dominate possession, shots, and shots on target but couldn’t convert anything. Losing to Spurs was one thing, but losing to Aston Villa would be a massive red flag heading into December.

November closed out with United and the Premier League dominating the GOAL50 2025 list. As expected Erling Haaland was voted the top player, but the Top 10 was full of United players for once. Rashford (2), Fernandes (3), and Declan Rice (6) were selected along with four City players and Mohamed Salah Liverpool’s only Top 10 representative. Jude Bellingham (16), Raphaël Varane (30), and Diogo Costa (50) were also selected.

Mixed start to the season this time round and an irritating community shield loss. 4 goals against City and Liverpool is a good sign though. Hopefully you can stabilize and defend your titles!